


You Will Know His Name

by RedFlagsAndDiamonds



Series: Gradence: Tales of Terror [2]
Category: Carrie (2013), Carrie - All Media Types, Carrie - Stephen King, Fantastic Beasts and Where to Find Them (Movies)
Genre: Abusive Parents, Age Difference, Alternate Universe - Modern Setting, Blood and Gore, Bullying, Child Abuse, Credence Barebone Crying During Sex, Emotional/Psychological Abuse, First Kiss, First Time, Genital Torture, Graduation, High School, Implied/Referenced Abuse, M/M, Mary Lou Barebone is Her Own Warning, Mental Anguish, Multiple Orgasms, Nipple Play, Physical Abuse, Pining, Prom, Prostate Massage, Racism, Religious Fanaticism, Sexual Tension, Suspense, Teacher-Student Relationship, Teen Crush, Telekinesis, implied/referenced animal cruelty, sadistic teachers
Language: English
Status: In-Progress
Published: 2018-10-10
Updated: 2019-07-28
Packaged: 2019-07-29 02:42:45
Rating: Explicit
Warnings: Graphic Depictions Of Violence, Underage
Chapters: 6
Words: 21,810
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/16255043
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/RedFlagsAndDiamonds/pseuds/RedFlagsAndDiamonds
Summary: Credence Barebone was an outcast teenage boy, bullied by classmates and subjected to constant torture by his religious zealot mother.Mr. Graves, an acerbic gym teacher, was the only person in the world to offer a kind word - if only it could be more.What none of them suspected, of course, was that Credence Barebone was telekinetic.A gradence Carrie!Au





	1. Chapter 1

**Author's Note:**

> So, because this is Carrie, be prepared for some pretty fucked up shit.
> 
> Inspired primarily by the novel, and the 2013 film

Percival Graves did not get paid enough for this shit.

Two tours carried out with honor, and the best that the world could manage as payback was a thankless job “molding young lives,” whatever the fuck that meant - in reality, he spent his time shouting out counts for push-ups and scaring the snot out of teenagers who made no secret of the fact that they hated his guts. 

Well, he wasn’t there to make friends with a handful of egotistical sixteen year olds, all of that “mentoring” bullshit was never really his thing, and as long as he covered the federal fitness mandates the school board could take his “recalcitrant attitude” and shove it up their lily white country-club fed asses. 

But nowhere did the state require that he babysit the waking nightmare that was a public high school locker room. He was going to crack Abernathy like a Rubix cube once that damn suckup got back from New Jersey. 

The Level Two class was in the middle of the quarterly athletic tests, which, afterward, translated to a lot of bitching and thick globs of sweat streaming from hair-matted armpits. Immature hoots of laughter - like gorillas - bounced off the yellowing tile wall as searing hot water gushed over acne-scarred flesh and wide brown nipples, vanishing eventually into a forest of dark hair over thick shin bones. A few towels were snapped across the unwary. Chimpanzee shrieks echoed. 

Percival sucked at the dregs of his travel mug, clinging to the forlorn hope that cold coffee might metamorphose into liquor. Planning period be damned, he was heading home as soon as the 9:30 bell rang and continuing the short-term intimate encounter with a half-finished six pack in his fridge. Sera would kill him for ditching so early in the day, leaving administration to carry out a mad scramble to find a substitute on virtually no notice, but she’d been in the habit of forgiving his every transgression since they were both as old as those screeching hyenas in the shower cubicle. Perhaps one day she’d decide his chances had run dry, but he doubted that day would come over one MIA.

The spigots were gradually cranked off, boys climbing out of the slick-tile arena. One of them fell on his square-hanging ass, nearly giving Percival a heart attack until the kid’s fellow neanderthals began snorting out throaty laughter. Towels were whipped off, boxers pulled on.The air thickened with acrid body spray, and Percival leaned back against the vomit-colored locker bank, rolling his eyes.

Let them believe the lies a bit longer; that the world gave a fuck about them, and that a single one of their little lives mattered.

He’d just dumped the last of the coffee into a cracked sink when the screaming started.

 

*

  
  


Credence Barebone slipped quietly between the rows of beige lockers, a gangly little stork among the apes. A snicker rattled past his ear as he crept towards the shower cube, and he fought the familiar urge to look over his shoulder, to try and understand what he’d done that was so funny. It was impossible to tell; they always laughed, no matter what he did.

It had been a class period much like any other; feeling the stares constantly, hearing the whispers behind hands, always self-conscious of where he stepped, where he looked, what he said or didn’t say - silently praying not to be called on, not to be forced into humiliating himself and doing their work for them.

He’d managed three sit ups in sixty-seconds; an all time low. But at least this time, he’d only been informed that he ate shit or sucked cocks twice.

The tile was slippery-wet under his bare feet, as he gingerly unwrapped a threadbare, colorless towel from around sharp-angled hips, glancing carefully around the cubicle, just to be certain. Two apple-red swathes blossomed across his cheekbones, like smears of blood on pallid skin. 

As if he were being timed, he cranked the spigot open; scalding water spluttered out of the pipes in a weak dribble, and Credence’s eyes fluttered shut in helpless rapture.

They didn’t have a shower at home, or hot water. Ma said showers were sinful.

In moments the white t-shirt on his back - never once removed - was plastered down with moisture, stuck to the knobs of his spine; a grotesque ladder of bumps flanked by chicken-weak ribs. Carefully, hesitantly, he reached for an abandoned brick of medicinal-smelling soap and cradled it just until both palms were slick - memories of past, stinging agony an inescapable deterrent - before delicately slathering himself. Baby-fine hairs were rumpled on both slender thighs, under his fingertips.

 

“Fucking  _ shit  _ -!”

 

He started at the voice, badly - one shoulder bumped against the tiled wall, water trailing through his feathery black hair and smothering it over his eyelids.

“Hunnh?”

It was a high, reflexive sound, and only deepened the ecstatic revulsion etched across Langdon’s ratlike face.

 

“What the fuck  _ is  _ that -?!”

 

Credence couldn’t speak, might have spoken, he was only vaguely aware of the nonsensical babbling that escaped his lips, begging and pleas for silence, desistance, to just be left  _ alone _ , which were simply ignored the way they always had been, for as long as he could remember.

“What -”

“What the hell -”

“Lang -”

There were faces, others slipping round the dividing wall now, curious as to what the noise could have been about. They craned over each other the same way whenever a fight broke out in the bleachers.

“Holy  _ fuck- _ !” one of them exclaimed, his jaw curling with disgust and the first sucking breath of astonished laughter.

One by one they all followed suit, shock, horror, nausea crossing their faces with sudden, abrupt understanding. Had it been any one of  _ them _ , oh no, that would be different, but this wasn’t one of  _ them, _ one of the guys that mattered, that would be a joke alright, something to holler about in late nights and early mornings over stolen shots of jager, but  _ this, _ this was too fucking perfect -

He was trying to squeeze past them now, trying to hide himself, hide  _ that _ ; face to the wall, hunched over, scrawny-stick arms tight around his ribs, then yanking down that fucking stupid shirt he always showered in, even though the collar was worn out and the fabric was stained brown-yellow under the arms, fucking retard, fucking-

“Freak!” came the silently awaited holler from Henry Shaw, and they all laughed - sneering, wild laughter bouncing off the tiles and echoing into infinity - because when Henry spoke, they responded. It was simple. 

Credence’s head swam; his guts felt hollow. The cubicle spun, and for a millionth of a second he wondered if he had fainted and managed to escape his long-dreaded nightmare that way, but then came the impact as his head bounced off the wet floor, and he realized - from the residual tingle in his skin - that someone had shoved him. 

He landed on his back, still begging, that damn shirt bunched up on his chest in a puddle of sodden cloth and exposing the whole fucked up  _ mess _ .

Someone made an exaggerated retching noise. A few others guffawed, adding to the quickly growing racket.

Trying to stand, Credence stumbled awkwardly as a sharp twinge shot up his ankle; a hand grabbed him, thick fingers closing over both fragile wrists -

One of the overhead lights flickered and blew out with a crack. No-one noticed, they couldn’t have heard it anyway.

“Could you even jack off with that-?”

“Bet you wouldn’t try and -”

“Oh, dude - how much’ve you got?”

It really wasn’t a big deal, one or two must have told themselves - just another way to fuck the Barebone freak up the fucking ass. Not like he didn’t have it coming. He was annoying as hell. Just another “thing”, like the towering F-A-G written in shit over his second floor locker, or snow and ice shoved down his throat in the parking lot, or the crumpled, unwrapped condoms - like shriveled up ballsacks - stuffed into the outer pocket of his retarded, hand-sewn backpack, or every single “too bad your mom didn’t have an abortion so we wouldn’t have to look at your fucking face.” 

Just joking around.

It must have stuck in their minds, like a shield of protection, a charm of sorts, reassuring them they weren’t doing anything that anyone else wouldn’t do, when Henry pulled a proudly emblazoned, US army knife from the pocket of his unzipped jeans.

“They shoulda just cut it off when they fucked it up -!” he sneered, flipping the blade open from it’s casing.

Their self-confidence - born solely from being someone other than the fag they had pinned on the floor - was still holding up, when all at once, Credence began thrashing and twisting in their ape-like hands, and started to scream. His eyes rolled in his head, mindlessly begging it seemed, words like “stop” and “please” and “help” just distinguishable through the hysterical shrieking.

Several of the donkey grins around the shower faltered, just a little.

They were still laughing, when Mr. Graves shouldered them out of the way.

 

* 

 

It took Percival about five seconds to understand what he was seeing, and roughly another five to believe it.

 

Sure, that weird Barebone kid had always been the scapegoat - there was  _ one _ , invariably - but this went a little beyond tripping him up on the running track or “accidentally” shoving him into the volleyball net: there were smears of blood on his curled thighs, where Henry’s knife had nicked him. He was still screaming, as if he were being gutted.

“Uh-oh -”

“Wha-”

“Oh shit -” came a mutter from Terrance Rowle, a blonde, twelfth grade boy built like a goddamn trucker, his blue eyes widening in quickly perceptible fear. 

Percival didn’t have much time to enjoy the obvious effect that his months of self-vilification had elicited, before the kid frantically wriggled free of his tormentors and curled into a sopping wet ball in the corner of the shower, quivering with every hysterical sob.

For one embarrassing second there was dead silence, broken only by his whimpering, until Percival realized that he was unfortunately still on the clock.

“Alright…” he muttered uncomfortably - this was out of his depth, Abernathy was going to pay in  _ blood _ for making him deal with this shit -

“Alright - Clarence - get it together -”

He reached for the kid’s shoulder, and it was like touching a live cable; one earsplitting screech before the boy huddled up even tighter, shaking his head wildly, bleating something too garbled to understand.

“C’mon -”

Kneeling now, he pulled him upright - contact prohibition laws be damned - gaze travelling brusquely from his snot-covered, wailing face to the drops of blood on his leg, and… what the…

The boy was hyperventilating now, gasping for breath around each maddened noise. Percival’s ears were ringing, and in a sudden attack of frustration he slapped him sharply across the cheek.

His knuckles came away sticky, but the kid stopped bawling, staring up at him and blinking like a fish.

“M-M-Mr. Gr-Gr-Gra-”

Someone behind them tittered.

They were actually finding the situation funny, crowding around like gawkers at a house fire, and for a moment Percival stunned himself when the sheer, unguarded truth of how much he  _ hated  _ every single one of those pampered little bastards bled through from his subconsciousness.

Fission reached: Explosion.

“OUT! GET THE  _ FUCK  _ OUT!”

That seemed to pull them up short, all suddenly stunned into silence. “Fuck,” that ugly coarse word, used in the hallowed halls of learning? What a thought.

Langdon Shaw tucked an iPhone into his back pocket.

“ _ What  _ did you not understand?! I said GET! OUT!”

Slowly, stupidly as cattle, they went, leaving Percival alone with the (now mercifully silent) weeping boy.

He was shaking, just slightly, his own groin tightening up a bit in sympathy as he carefully pushed the kid back into a sitting position against the wall, and eased his thighs a few inches apart. Evidently undone past resistance, he let himself be moved around like a doll, still crying. 

Some of the blood that had apparently been drawn while he was struggling had smeared across his groin, and for a fraction of a second Percival was stuck between wild confusion and nauseated horror, wondering if he’d actually been landed with a group of kids who were that sick, who would actually chop off someone’s -

No. They hadn’t. But someone else had obviously tried.

He’d seen guys, boys, who’d been cut, some who’d clearly had the benefit of expensive, better trained pediatric surgeons versus the others, but this…

A long scar went raggedly up the length of the shaft, where flesh and muscle had been hacked into and torn away with the excess skin. A too-deep ridge surrounded the glans, and the upper quarter of the pale pink head was simply gone altogether, replaced with a rough, ridged pad of scar tissue.

The only word possible was mutilation.

“Who the hell did this to you?” Percival finally asked softly, too taken aback for any of his usual acerbic harshness.

Whimpering, the boy shook his head even more frantically, and refused to meet his eyes.

“Clar -”

_ “THAT’S NOT MY NAME!”  _ he screamed abruptly.

The water dispenser in the corner - an aged, molded thing that had been urinated into countless times - suddenly exploded in a shower of liquid and shards of blue plastic.

Startled, Percival shook himself and turned back to the kid in front of him. After a hour like this shitshow, his brain could play any number of tricks on him. Anyway, damn place was crumbling in on itself…

“C’mon…” he mumbled, grasping his upper arms and pulling him to his feet carefully. “C’mon, let’s get you cleaned up…”

 

*

 

The second period late bell rang about two minutes after Sera ushered them into her office, brows knitted beneath her artfully streaked hair.

“Is this a disciplinary problem or an incident report?”

Percival braced both hands on his hips, groaning uneasily while Credence (Credence! Holy shit, the kid was better off with some trainwreck like “Clarence”) shrank down into one of the brown leather chairs in front of the desk, clearly intent on making himself as small as possible.

“Neither, maybe… maybe both, I, uh, I wasn’t sure how to…”

He broke off, coming to a quick realization that evasion wouldn’t get them anywhere.

“Anyway, he needs to go home early - rough day.” 

Sera opened her mouth briefly, as if about to protest, but caught the warning look in his eye - one she’d been amply familiar with since their junior year of high school, and Percival had rushed her from the house the instant his father’s car headlights appeared outside the window.

One french manicured finger hit the intercom on her desk, and while she asked the secretary for a dismissal form, Percival got on his knee beside Credence’s chair.

He was still damp-cheeked and his chin was wobbling, hinting at another crying jag in the near future.  Ultimately, it had taken well over ten minutes to calm him down, while Percival - in a rare show of compassion - gave his face a firm rubdown with a dry towel to bring some of his color back, before helping him stuff trembly, fawn-like limbs into his clothes.

Some deep, twisted part of himself that he didn’t want to acknowledge whispered cruelly that if he hadn’t seen the whole atrocious incident with his own eyes, he might have dismissed him as another too-modest little wimp - the loose white button down and ugly, badly-fitted khaki trousers held up with bracers completed the stereotype but to perfection, and the silver crucifix displayed blatantly around his neck didn’t help.

Somehow, he doubted any of it was the kid’s decision. Heartbreak leaves a very clear impression, and it was already stamped indelibly into Credence’s brown eyes.

“Look, um - ‘M sorry about the smack, I could’ve thought that through more..”

Credence kept his gaze - wide, shell-shocked - fixed firmly on the ugly grey carpet, hands squeezing at his ribs like a shield.

“So, uh…”

Self-shame was doing an ugly battle with conscience in Percival’s chest, eventually manifesting itself into an awkward cough while he scrubbed a hand through his unwashed hair.

“- Don’t worry about coming to the gym for the rest of the week, we’ll, uh - we’ll work something out.”

Sera added her signature to the yellow dismissal slip with the usual aggressive flourish, and slid it across the desk.

“Just take that to Ms. Walthers out front - she’ll give your mother a call.”

It was like flicking a switch on an electric chair - Credence’s head shot up, his eyes coming into terrible focus.

“What -?”

Sera sighed again, and Percival could already tell from experience that she was struggling not to rub her temples.

“It’s the school policy - we’ll need to call your mom and -”

“No - no no no…”

For a moment it looked like he might vomit or faint, and the suspicion already seeded in Percival’s mind began to grow.

“I can see you’re upset, but this isn’t optional -”

_ “NO!”  _ he shrieked suddenly, just as the chic glass clock perched on the desk seemed to throw itself off the surface and shatter across the floor.

Flushing, horrified, he jumped up from the chair as if something had burned him and raced back out to the main office.

“Let him go,” Sera muttered quietly, finally standing and coming around the desk. “All the main doors are locked anyway - he probably just needs some time to himself.”

She plucked a clean sheet of paper from the printer drawer and began delicately sweeping up the broken shards of glass with a sapphire blue ballpoint pen. Once everything had been disposed of cleanly in the dustbin and she’d begun nursing a nicked finger, Sera finally glanced up at him, her expression betraying the full extent of her exasperation.

“Percy, what the hell is this all about?”

“Someone botched a circumcision on him.” he muttered, bluntly.

Her face paled.

“I-I don’t see why…?”

“We’re talking  _ deformity _ , Sera, I - some of the others must’ve caught a glimpse and decided to give him crap.”

She sighed, eyes fluttering shut.

“There’s not much I can do with ‘must’ve’ Perce, you know that -”

“You didn’t see him in there - he was shaking, screaming, his eyes were rolling around - I’ve only ever seen advanced combat vets display those kinds of symptoms, flashbacks to civilian bombings, limbs being blown off -”

“What did you say the last name was? Barebone?” Sera awkwardly shuffled around a paper or two.

“Yeah, but -”

“Well, that explains some things… she’s the nut who went on the warpath about a year ago over the Anthropology class; something about how Satan would claim us for doubting the Lord… there were rumors though, before your time, things that...”

She paused, suckling her wounded finger a moment.

“Do you have names at least, for the… incident?”

“Both the Shaw brothers, as usual. And their goon squad.”

“Christ have mercy…” Sera groaned. “Have you spoken to them?”

“Honestly, I just wanted them out of there - couldn’t stand to look at their faces anymore, not while he was that fucking hysterical -” 

“Well, without a complainant pointing the finger, my hands are tied, but… look, if I let you -”

“I’ll deal with it. Rip them down one side and up the other.”

Picquery sighed heavily.

“Percy, please - you don’t need another probationary period on your record, not this late into the semester -”

“‘Appreciate the concern, but this job isn’t worth saving with a blind eye. You can tell me off later.”

He turned and left without a by-your-leave. Sera’s eyes fixed on the aged scar half-hidden by the strap of his tank top as he closed the door.

“The things we do for love.” she mumbled under her breath, before buzzing a secretary to pick up the still abandoned dismissal form.

  
  


*

  
  


Lectures and half-hearted classwork droned behind closed doors down the hallway, while Credence sat quite still on the varnished oak bench near the visitor’s entrance. A death row guard would have recognized his expression. 

Two boys in the opposite seats were snickering, and one of them hissed to grab his attention before miming something obscene, his tongue moving in his cheek.

Credence flinched, and turned his focus back to the speckled floor tiles. If he concentrated enough, he could almost see shapes in them. A piece of dried chewing gum was smeared next to his shoe.

It was the little things he’d taught himself to notice, the empty candy wrappers and lost pencils abandoned in the hallway and senseless, indistinguishable graffiti etched into the cinderblock walls. The little sadnesses of life that took his mind away from other, greater sorrows.

Ma told him constantly that the Day of Judgement was coming, that not a moment could be wasted in preparing to be taken up, to make himself one of the worthy ones; all the others, the grinning, cackling children that pointed and jeered, He would smite them down, there would be an angel with a flaming sword…

Those thoughts had been a comfort once, when Credence was very small, but as he grew, and the tolerance of those around him for anything different shrank into obscurity, he couldn’t help feeling that he’d much rather enjoy what this life had to offer, instead of readying himself for the next one.

Besides, if the angel was going to turn up, surely he would have by now.

 

He’d tried to fit in, tried to un-become the freak. He hadn’t gotten on his knees to pray in public since third grade, when Ma had been forced to stop homeschooling him. By the end of the first day, he knew better. He tried to cover up the agony and laugh with them, whenever the joke was on him (and it always was.) A million tiny little disobediences, all of them worthless. Once you had been labeled the outcast, there was no salvation from the pit.

He wouldn’t even have showered at school, any time or day, would have taken the half-credit for the day rather than risk exposing that horrible, horrible secret, but he’d hoped in a weak, forlorn way, that perhaps sharing in that shameful ritual, groaning whenever Mr. Abernathy blew that plastic whistle and pointed them towards the shower block, perhaps that could have deteriorated the walls surrounding him just a little.

But today… oh Lord, why today?...

Credence had been a little frightened of Mr. Graves ever since he’d seen the man from across the gym for the first time, and gave silent thanks that he’d been placed in the much smaller, jumpier Mr. Abernathy’s class. 

If his own teacher were a pecking seagull, Mr. Graves was a tiger - strong, slow moving, often benign but quick to anger, and when that happened… Credence shuddered to imagine it. The almighty descending from Sinai, beautiful and terrible surrounded with blazing fire…

He gasped a little at his own blasphemy.

Class had been humiliating enough, showing himself as a weak, worthless thing in front of not just the usual snickering carnival, but that dark-eyed, firm jawed man, with hands that could crush the wicked and a smooth, heavy voice that shouted and terrified him…

And afterward… oh why,  _ why  _ did he have to have seen _? _

The bell clanged over the speaker system, drawing hundreds of teenagers from the classrooms in droves, but it was the unmistakable scent of talcum powder and sweat that drew Credence’s gaze up.

Ma always wore the same black clogs over wrinkled, drooping nylons, and as the enormous shoes - drowning her tiny feet - came to a pause in front of the bench, Credence felt something in his belly quiver.

She was drawing eyes and whispers, standing there in her black cotton dress that hung like a sack, the gigantic black satchel purse and King James bible (covered in black) under her arm, the fuzzy, xeroxed tracts of Jack Chick comics - Ma seemed to believe it was the best way to reach children - clutched in the bony hand that wasn’t currently reaching out to grasp his arm. She didn’t notice how people stared at her, she never noticed. She had had torn herself free of shame long ago, knowing she was the messenger of Truth. 

“Let’s go home now.” she murmured, in her fragile, pretty voice.

Helpless, Credence stood and allowed her to lead him out through the current of gawkers, out to the parking lot. 

It was only when they were trundling down the back road in the old woodgrain station wagon, a little silver, looped fish ornamenting the trunk hatch, that he finally managed to speak, weakly.

“...I’m sorry you had to come to school, Ma.”

She didn’t reply.

Credence swallowed, tracing one fingertip along the car seat, the beige felt flattened and shiny with age.

He didn’t know how much the office had told her, what they had said to her, and the dread was beginning to cramp his insides up like a knot. Sometimes he wished she’d scold, shout at him in front of the school doors like he’d seen other mothers do whenever they’d been called fetch their sons - then at least, he’d know what she was thinking.

Gravel crunched under the thin wheels as they pulled into the car port, and Ma breathed in deeply as she cut off the ignition.

“Let’s go inside.” she muttered. “We’ll go inside and pray.”

Credence choked on a whimper.

“They laughed at me, Ma.” he half-whispered, trembling. “I - I thought they were going to -”

To do what you did. Do more than you did, he couldn’t manage to say.

Ma didn’t say a word, as usual - her blue eyes focused directly in front of her, unblinking.

“We’ll talk about this inside, Credence.” she murmured softly, climbing out of the car.

With a sudden burst of courage he never would have thought he possessed, he jumped out of his seat just as she reached the whitewashed steps to the front porch.

“No, Ma, I - I wanna talk about it here, I - I don’t wanna go inside with you…”

His voice faltered at the last, while her frigid stare chilled him through to the bone, and he immediately felt a sickening churning in his gut.

That one spark of defiance would cost him dearly.

Broken down, subdued, Credence shut the car door and followed her silently up the steps and into the small brick house.

Light never seeped through into the dingy rooms, partly because Ma kept the windows covered up with thick yellow curtains, and partly because electricity in abundance was sinful. Two rattan chairs stood sentry by a folded futon with a lumpy, orange mattress, a thick-framed engraving of the ten commandments in silver hanging on the wall behind.  Dust clung to every corner and edge, to the heavy sewing table in the corner where Ma made all their clothes, across the green linolieum tile in the kitchen and the knobs of the gas stove. Everything heavy, thick, and ugly, and God’s face watching from every wall and over every doorway. 

Ma set her purse down on the salmon-plastic table in the kitchen, her every breath whistling.

“Go to the altar.”

“Ma…” his voice quavered.

“Go to the altar and pray.”

“Ma… it wasn’t my fault -”

“Go to the altar and pray for forgiveness.”

“Please -”

Pain exploded across his scalp, throbbing in his skull and blinding him for a moment, and it wasn’t until he saw the black cover multiplied fuzzily against the hooked rug, a threadbare thing depicting Eve and the serpent, that he realized she’d struck him with her bible.

He was crying by the time she had pulled him in front of a card table opposite the futon, shoving him to his knees. The rice scattered across the floor dug through his trouser legs and straight into bruised skin.

“The Sun was risen upon the Earth when Lot entered Zoar…” Ma crooned, immovable. “And the Lord rained upon Sodom and upon Gomorrah brimstone and fire from the Lord out of heaven -”

A sob ripped free of Credence’s strained throat as she yanked his head back, fingers knotting tightly in his hair. Both eyes were forced directly in line with the head of the altar - the wooden cross atop a gleaming white cloth, two candles in silver holders. Behind the cross hung two rummage sale Lovis Corinth posters on glossy paper; his  _ Large Martyrdom  _ and  _ The Temptation of Saint Anthony.  _ A twisted rictus of blood, torture, and cruel faces - thick, wobbling thighs and buttocks, faces that were even crueler.

“For know ye not that the unrighteous shall not inherit the kingdom of God - Be not deceived: neither fornicators, nor idolaters, nor adulterers, nor effeminate, nor abusers of themselves with mankind -”

“ _ Please, stop-!” _

“Pray now - pray for His forgiveness, that the sin of Lust may be washed away-”

“I didn’t sin, Ma!” he shrieked, struggling under her deceptively small hands. “I couldn’t - there were too many - I -!”

“- You brought the Lord’s vengeance upon yourself…” she whispered, her lips drawn thin across her teeth. “I washed you clean; I made you pure. And you cavorted yourself among them, wicked, tempting -”

“No-!  _ You hurt me, Ma!  _ You hurt me, and they all laughed! I didn’t sin -  _ you sinned!” _

She sucked in a breath, her eyes fluttering shut as if in horror. 

“Oh God…” she moaned quietly. “Oh, show this devilspawn the error of his ways, that this is your loving, vengeful hand at work -”

His head smacked the edge of the table as she pushed him down into a humble posture. He sagged in her grip, dazed, her frenzied, mumbled prayers a buzzing in his ears, and finally he did pray, prayed silently for it all to just  _ stop _ ...

Credence couldn’t be certain if the prayer were answered, or if his body merely gave out under the stress, but mercifully everything faded away.

 

*

 

_ It was a light, warm day in the center of July mugginess, and Miss Goldstein was sunbathing again.  _

_ She had on a tiny bathing suit - pink, like melted peppermint candy - that showed her stomach and the tops of her breasts, and every inch of her skin glistened with suntan lotion. _

_ Ma hated Miss Goldstein’s bathing suits. She called her a whore of Satan.  _

_ Credence thought she looked beautiful. _

_ The fence slats creaked a bit as he leaned against them, one small arm cradling a ratty felt lamb as he looked curiously into the Goldsteins’ yard.  _

_ Miss Goldstein murmured softly as she turned towards the noise, and she squeaked when she saw him. She pushed up her sunglasses - big, purple, and covered in sparkly sequins - before tightening the laces behind her neck with a pretty grin. _

_ “You scared me, honey!” _

_ Credence blushed guiltily, and cuddled his lamb closer.  _

_ It was old and there were stains on it’s wool; some stuffing had started to come out and one of it’s button eyes drooped, making it look sad on one side. Credence didn’t like looking at the sad side, because then it looked like someone had hurt the lamb, and that hurt to think about.  _

_ Credence didn’t like hurting. _

_ Miss Goldstein was standing up then, coming over to the fence. She had long, white legs - pretty legs, he decided, and there was a freckle on one of them just above her knee… _

_ He hadn’t understood for a long time why some ladies didn’t wear as many clothes as Ma did, until she explained that all those other ladies were going to Hell. He was sorry for that. Miss Goldstein was so nice - she’d brought them soup once, when he was sick, but Ma wouldn’t let her in the house. _

_ She knelt down, so that they were eye to eye, and smiled at him, nodding towards his lamb. _

_ “Who’s your friend?” _

_ He was still chewing on his dry lower lip, wondering if he should answer, when the screen door clattered shut behind him, and he already knew Ma was there, on the porch, knew she had seen him… _

_ “Credence…” came a low, terrible hiss from the doorway, and his face crumpled before he could help it, his throat closing up, because he’d disobeyed again, and that meant he’d sinned, and Ma would scourge him - _

_ “Credence, what have I told you?” _

_ Ma never raised her voice once, and somehow that made it so much worse, worse than if she had screamed and bayed and roared at him. _

_ He whimpered softly. _

_ “Get in this house, now.” _

_ “There’s nothing to get upset over, Mrs. Barebone, we were just saying hello…” Miss Goldstein was saying, weakly, but it made no difference to the way Ma strode down from the door and grasped Credence’s arm hard enough that he could feel the bones pinch together. He cried out, but Ma didn’t look back while she dragged him back towards the house. _

_ “Don’t you touch him like that!” a new voice suddenly shouted from across the lawn, as the other Miss Goldstein - her sister, the one with dark hair and denim shorts who always looked angry when he and Ma walked down the street - running from their back door to the fence. “You should be ashamed of yourself-!” _

_ Ma turned and looked back at them, and her eyes almost seemed to glow, in that awful way that gave Credence bad dreams at night. _

_ “Whores.” she whispered, just loud enough for them to hear, and she was just pulling him through the door, ignoring his tears, when something heavy smashed against the tin porch roof. It made a loud noise, like the time he had dropped the cutlery sorter on the kitchen tile, and they all jumped, but then another crash came, higher up, and then another, and another, before a white chunk of  _ something  _ hurtled down and burrowed into the lawn. _

_ It was ice. _

_ Ma went very pale, staring at him as if he had changed into something ugly and terrible right in front of her. _

_ “Sin!” she muttered. “Oh, Sin!” _

_ Then she had snatched him up, and he screamed, frightened because everything was moving too fast and he couldn’t see where they were going, what was happening, and the ice was still smashing against the roof and the walls of the house, faster and harder with every second, like it could break right in -  _

_ Credence felt his back hit something hard, and suddenly he recognized the dark wooden blades of the ceiling fan and realized they were in the living room, he was lying on the altar, and there was something on his wrists, something thick and tight, and he couldn’t move -  _

_ He cried harder. He’d dropped his lamb outside. _

_ Ma was praying, shaky and excited; “Wherefore if thy hand or thy foot offend thee, cut them off, and cast them from thee: it is better for thee to enter into life halt or maimed, rather than having two hands or two feet to be cast into everlasting fire…” _

_ Something gleamed in her hand; the big kitchen knife that Credence wasn’t allowed to touch, laid on the altar cloth beside him... _

_ She pulled his clothes down and up, until he felt warm, summer air on his belly, his shirt pushed over his face so that he couldn’t see - he cried harder than ever, frightened, and then… then… then…  _


	2. Chapter 2

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> It's been a long time, I know, but this story is finally continuing! Enjoy!

 

On Monday morning, Percival tugged on his black singlet and wrapped his knuckles like a mob enforcer going into battle. 

He wanted to give those little shits nightmares for at least a month.

 

He’d perfected the art of transforming himself into a scary motherfucker at a young age, entirely for survival, and the adjustment got easier over the years until it barely required any effort. The extra pounds of flab he’d carried around through grade school had finally begun to disappear when he turned fourteen, and by graduation he’d been able to put his fists behind any sharp retort, in the classroom, the street, or the den at home.

He remembered the first time he’d swung out and landed a blow straight in the teeth, hard as a sledgehammer. It hurt, his knuckles had been bruised purple-red for days afterward, but the world had suddenly seemed so crystal clear, he’d felt indestructible and _free._

It had been several weeks before Dad was able to push anything filthier than several mumbled syllables off his tongue..

 

Percival flexed his right hand again, relished the strain of the medical gauze against bone and muscle. 

He hadn’t been able to scrape Credence Barebone from his mind all weekend, Credence wailing, sobbing, flinching away from every touch, the watery blood staining pale white thighs and the downy hair between them - and his own horrifying reaction. Sometimes he swore that his palm still stung from that undeserved slap.

The video, of course, hadn’t helped matters.

When the file appeared in his inbox that morning, accompanied by a curt note from Sera (“Superintendent informed. For all the difference it makes”) Percival had managed the first few sickening seconds with a sort of hazy detachment, before something in his gut rebelled and a half cup of black coffee had to be vomited down the kitchen sink. 

He recognized the filming style of course, even on a phone camera, every teacher would. The shakiness, the heavy breathing overlaid on the screaming for exactly one minute and fifty-two seconds - Langdon Shaw was delusional at best, if he thought he had a single shot at photojournalism, whatever news rag his father owned. Another pathetic attempt in the timeless saga of sons straining to impress draconian fathers. Percival could have told him it wasn’t worth the energy.

Evidently the video was still online for the time being, meaning that three-quarters of the student body would have seen and shared it to the other quarter by now. “CutItOff” was trending locally.

 

He clung to the disgust and rage like a lifeline all the way through a thirty-three minute drive and the interminable wait before the bell heralded the start of the first period gym class. The little horde of rat-faced boys came trudging in. Some were obviously clueless, still making nonsensical jokes about their own anatomy and thinking they were hilarious; others seemed to expect a fallout and quickly adopted their don’t-give-a-fuck faces as a weak defense. Percival knew the type - they’d be crying after one raised voice from a grown man.

 

“Gonna be a busy couple of months for all’ve you, hm?” he mentioned, leaning against the locker bank while they began changing warily into shorts and running shoes. 

“Prom, exams, grad - that’s a lotta stress, yeah? How about I cut you a little slack today, let you do something more important with your time?”

One or two were idiotic enough to actually look relieved, even excited.

“How about you each try running a disposable razor over your dicks while Shaw here takes glamour shots? That seems to be what gets you all off lately.”

A few embarrassed grumbles were interrupted as Henry began striding for the door.

“I don’t know where you think you’re going.”

“Kiss my ass.” Henry replied succinctly, but the smug attitude vanished the moment that Percival slammed him into the locker bank with a ringing crash, foreshadowing several enormous bruises. 

A kind of wild, insane rage came across Henry’s face - the sort of fury only experienced by young men encountering consequences for the first time.

“You can’t touch us!” he screamed. “You’ll get fucking fired, you sonovabitch! I’ll press fucking charges on your ass -!”

“You think I give a damn, Shaw?” Percival growled dangerously, noting with some satisfaction that most of the boys suddenly looked significantly less sure of themselves. “If you - any of you - think I’m being a teacher right now, it’s time to wake the fuck up. You acted like little fucking bastards yesterday, and you all damn well know that.”

Henry was glaring at the floor, the rest of them searching pathetically for something, anything else to look at, other than Percival’s eyes.

“Any of you ever taken a kick to the balls? The kidneys? I have. It hurts like a bitch. And if that boy wanted to pay you back for what you all put him through yesterday afternoon, I’d let him, just so you could learn what it feels like - hell, I’d hand him the fucking knife.”

Henry muttered something indistinguishable about his father.

“Open your mouth one more time and I’ll throw you across this goddamned room.” Percival snarled inches from his face, and Henry, apparently deciding that Mr. Graves had slipped into insanity, for once did as he was told.

“Now my idea for all you little shits was two weeks hauling garbage after school, two-forty-five to eleven pm, but this district has a weak stomach - so one week’s detention, on my watch.”

Someone snorted.

“That’s twelve suicide drills, twenty minutes each - and you can explain why you didn’t show up to the rest of your classes.”

“Kiss my ass.” Henry growled, eyes bright with fury.

“Thought you had Julie Warner taking care of that for you, Shaw.”

The usual chorus of howls was smothered down by pure fear. No one talked to Henry like that. He might tell his father.

“And speaking of, anyone who decides to take a little break or walk out is on the prom blacklist. Sure, that probably doesn’t matter much to you. But I’d bet there’ll be some pretty pissed off ladies around here, hm? And they don’t put out as easy unless you butter them up first with flowers and spiked punch, am I right? Hate to think of all that money wasted on hotel rooms.”

No one said anything. 

“Change up. And start thinking hard.”

 

He left through the exit bay into the gym, breathing like a bull before a charge.

 

 

*

 

“Sonovabitch gets off on Barebone’s freak dick-!”

The other boys readjusted groin protectors and laced up sneakers, pretending not to hear. It was easier to just nod and comply when Henry started one of his rants.

Slithering up to his brother as always, Langdon mumbled something about kicking ass – laughable, when at five-two Langdon wasn’t going to kick anybody’s ass anytime soon. 

Henry ignored him, still railing hysterically.

“I’ll fucking fight him, motherfucker-! It’s fucking bullshit, we didn’t _do anything-_! Motherfucker-!”

“Shut the hell up, man.” Someone muttered quietly. Henry screeched, tearing open a locker at random and hurling a backpack at the wall, evidently not noticing or not caring that his court of loyal lackeys were all searching for something else to look at, their faces pink with embarrassment.

No one had ever been _quite_ delusional enough to think that Henry had reached god-like status on his own paltry merit – he was handsome, rich, and his father was a state delegate, three elements which dictated a mouth-watering degree of ass-kissery. 

Obviously, Henry had never considered that those privileges might not work on everyone.

“…Asshole better watch his back.” He finally snarled, sulking on the bench in the corner. “We’re not done.”

 

None of them realized, at the time, that he was right.

 

*

 

Credence already knew by the time he had wriggled uncomfortably through the sneering masses in the front atrium. They always gathered there in the mornings, between classes, during the breaks, the lunch periods, under the sunny mural proclaiming “the sheltering tree of friendship.”

 

Julie Warner catcalled at him, asking if it got bigger in cold water. 

 

Cheeks flaming and a firm lump stuck in his throat, Credence pushed into the boys’ restroom, mercifully empty for the time of day, and braced himself against the dirty porcelain sink.

_No point no point hiding gotta come out they’ll be waiting gotta come out sometime why oh why oh why_

He glanced up, shaking, eyes landing on his reflection in the streaked mirror.

At times like these, it was obvious why they singled him out – his unevenly chopped hair, the white plaid shirt more suited to an old man, the hateful, enormous cross dangling around his neck like deadweight…

Credence actually felt it for the first time when the dry sobs began. Nothing painful or shocking enough to startle him, it wasn’t much more than a weak, quavering flex of unseen muscles.

He didn’t jump or gasp until the mirror cracked and shards of glass crumpled into the sink.

For a long moment Credence stood still, eyes locked on the wreckage. There had been a sensation, he was sure of that, but it was impossible, could not be…

One of the pieces of glass was perfectly rounded at one side, and he could see his left eye reflected in the surface.

 

_Flex._

 

The shard was floating. No, not floating. He was lifting it. 

 

Another _flex,_ very careful, deliberate. The glass was heavy, like lifting stone slabs with withered arms. 

It stopped rising, dangling in the air, spinning gently like an ornament on a wind chime. 

Veins throbbed in Credence’s temples. Sweat beaded across his forehead, his heartbeat fluttering, fast as a mouse.

 

_Flex._

 

The other pieces rose up to join the first, twirling slowly on invisible threads and fracturing the ugly fluorescent light.

 

A shocked, quavering smile came across his face.

 

 

The angel had come, and the blade had begun to smolder.

 

*

 

He crouched down at his desk as always, a defense that had become habitual, but the posture hid Credence’s face while he gazed outside the classroom window.

The flag hung limp on it’s pole against an overcast sky, the usual dreary afternoon of late spring, and he wondered…

 

He reached out, stretching as if he were reaching for an object just beyond his fingertips.

 

The flag trembled, then began to flutter as if lifted by a breeze, though the tree branches surrounding the school lawn remained completely motionless.

 

Perhaps he should have been more frightened, but all Credence felt at that moment was a strange kind of elation and even freedom. As if an enormous, long-carried weight had been lifted.

 

“- Mr. Barebone?” 

Credence snapped out of his haze, the excitement curdling in his belly and souring.

 

Langdon snorted.

 

“Y-yes, Mr. Grimmson?”

 

A chorus of snickering and whispered remarks was already sweeping the room, and Credence miserably felt his ears flushing a bright pink, knowing exactly what was coming. 

The head of the english department - a sharp-eyed man whose face had begun it’s late middle-aged descent into jowliness - stared him down with his usual hawkish expression.

“I hope it isn’t too much to assume that you did last night’s assignment?” 

Credence swallowed with difficulty, his throat painfully tight, before nodding.

“Then you wouldn’t mind reading your excerpt aloud.” he gestured towards the empty space beside his desk.

 

Head bent, Credence made his way through the gauntlet of barely muffled laughter, all of them sharing in some grossly enormous joke that he couldn’t hope to guess.

 

The words on the paper in his hands blurred slightly, and panic rose in his chest. The consequences of a single flubbed word were too dreadful to contemplate.

 

“With - with beating heart and lagging feet -“

 

“Can’t hear you.” Mr. Grimmson brusquely interrupted his frail beginning, and Credence wanted to die. 

He started again;

 

“With beating heart and lagging feet,

Lord, I approach the Judgment-seat.

All bring hither the fruits of toil,

Measures of wheat and measures of oil;

 

Gold and jewels and precious wine;

No hands bare like these hands of mine.

The treasure I have nor weighs nor gleams:

Lord, I can bring you only dreams -”

 

 

Julie Warner whispered something to a pretty blonde girl Credence only knew by sight, and they both quivered with repressed shrieks.

 

 

“All the heat of the summer through,

I dreamed she lived, that her heart was true

Throughout the hours of the day I slept,

But woke in the night, at times, and wept.

 

The nights and days, they went and came,

I lay in shadow and dreamed of fame;

And heard men passing the lonely place,

Who marked me not and my hidden face.

 

My strength waxed faint, my hair grew grey;

Nothing but dreams by night and day.

Some men sicken, with wine and food; 

I starved on dreams, and found them good.

 

This is the tale I have to tell--

Show the fellow the way to hell.”

 

There was silence for a moment after the verse concluded, and Credence allowed himself a shuddering breath of relief - but the teacher halted him before he could dive back to his seat.

 

“Well then… That must be the most you’ve spoken in my class over the entire semester. What are the thoughts on Mr. Barebone’s selection?”

 

A storm of hollering and laughter broke over the thin little figure, defenseless at the front of the classroom. It was as if he were hearing it all from underwater, and he imagined, his chin starting to tremble, that if he just let out a breath he might drown, and it would all finally just fade away…

 

“Fuckin’ asshole.”

 

They all fell silent at once, twisting in their seats to stare at Mr. Graves, leaning against the doorframe with an expression that could melt iron.

 

“Can I assist you with something, Percival?” Mr. Grimmson inquired silkily, and Credence noticed, with something like reverence, that Mr. Graves didn’t seem intimidated, or even embarrassed.

“Needta borrow him for a minute. If you’re finished.”

 

Credence didn’t wait for Mr. Grimmson to reply before he almost dashed back through the rows of desks, towards the door.

“Get your stuff; you won’t have time to come back for it.”

 

There was nearly a half hour left of the class period.

He was concerned as to what might take that long - maybe more to do with what had happened the week before, in the shower (so strange, it almost didn’t feel real anymore, like it had happened to someone else, someone in the books on the library display table) and he wished it could just be forgotten.

 

The hallways were eerily silent as they plodded back towards the athletics wing, all the classes still deep in session. Mr. Graves didn’t speak or even turn to him until they were inside his office, and the door closed behind them with a painful _smack._

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> The poem Credence reads is a segment from "The Last Judgement" by Amy Levy.


	3. Chapter 3

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> And so we continue - thanks so much for all the support guys, it means everything to me! Enjoy the newest chapter!

 

There wasn’t much worth speaking of in that little pit-like corner of the building, and Percival had been in some real rat-traps in his time, both as a guest and as a resident, but he’d make allowances for that office. Crumbling putty-filler and mold in the corners, whatever - as long as he had his own coffee maker and the tv cart in the corner by the filing cabinet, sparing him any drop-ins to the teachers’ lounge, he’d be able to subsist. 

 

“Sit down.”

 

He nodded towards one of the slit-backed, stackable plastic chairs near his desk, but Credence stood by the door, white cheeked and clutching his hand sewn backpack to his chest like a protective mother.

 

“C’mon, I’m going grey here.”

 

At long last he did as he was told, but still with that remorseless hesitance, like a limping colt waiting to be shot.

Percival couldn’t blame him.

 

“You okay?” he asked, as gently as he could manage. 

Credence didn’t reply at first, but eventually nodded with an indistinguishable mumble.

 

For as a much as Percival wanted to launch into a tirade - Gunnar Grimsson was a piece of shit who couldn’t stand that he wasn’t as smart as his brothers and took his revenge on a few innocent teenagers every year - he managed to keep his head, and slid back into his well-honed hard-ass persona.

 

“Now, we both know you’re not going back into that gym until last Thursday blows over-“

 

The kid somehow managed to look at once relieved and, inexplicably, guilty.

Percival caught the look too late to stop his lecture in it’s tracks, and hated himself for it. 

 

“-but that doesn’t mean I’m lettin’ you off easy - I want you in the weight room after school for the next two weeks, until I decide you’re up to speed. Every day you don’t show, that’s another three days added on. Starting this afternoon. Clear?”

 

Credence didn’t answer at first, apparently struck dumb.

 

“Look, Abernathy’s gonna be out for a while - gallstones are a bitch, I guess - so I’m all the options you’ve got, kid.”

 

“N-no, it’s not that sir, I - it’s just that I can’t up- I don’t want to upset my mother.”

 

His phrasing wasn’t lost on Percival, and for a sickeningly familiar moment he wondered what Mrs. Barebone’s technique was; withholding food or heating? Putdowns?Or something more pedestrian, like a slap to the mouth?

“I’ll give her a call later.“

 

“But - but she’ll have to come later to get me, and -“ he was shaking, just slightly, and for the first time in his life, Percival felt like a heartless bastard.

Must be a genetic flaw.

One of Sera’s shrink-friends, the ones he couldn’t afford, would probably explain it away by the lack of an effective maternal presence during his formative years, or some bullshit like that (granted, there might be something to it - his mother had taken off for God knew where after Dad’s microbrewery had fallen through, and after that the old man had about five girlfriends at any given time. Of course, his only true love had ever been a bottle of Yuengling) but Percival narrowed it down all by himself fairly quickly. 

“I can give ya a ride home each night - I’ve already got a half-hour drive, a little more’s not gonna kill me.”

 

Credence’s jaw dropped before he started shaking his head frantically. He looked like a Saturday morning cartoon.

 

“But - Mr. Graves - I can’t ask you to - “

 

“You didn’t ask; I told you. End of discussion. You like jerky or oatmeal bars?”

 

His bewilderment at the abrupt change of topic obvious, Credence floundered briefly while Percival rifled through the supply of snacks hidden in his desk drawer.

“Um, oatmeal please. Sir.”

 

He tossed him the last chocolate chip-marshmallow, and pretended not to notice when the boy failed to catch it, or how he whimpered at the taste after one nibble.

 

“Um… Mr. Graves…?” he mumbled hesitantly, while Percival refilled his coffee cup.”I, uh… shouldn’t I be getting ba-“

 

“You’re not going anywhere near that room for the next hour; I’ll keep you ’til the fourth period. Mind if I turn on the tv?”

 

Wide-eyed and stuck with a look that men with happier pasts might have recognized as worship, he shook his head and took another careful, relishing bite of that disgusting chewy-oats bar.

 

*

 

Credence arrived in the weight room before many of the other teenagers had reached their lockers at the end of the day.

The lights flickered a moment before igniting with a subtle buzz, reflecting off worn black leather benches and fading chrome that despite all their annually increasing shabbiness, seemed hopelessly intimidating. Several classrooms, the lunch cafeteria, and (if he felt brave) the library comprised the extent of Credence’s little world within that rotting school, and intruding elsewhere sent him into an instinctive high alert. 

Who knew what vengeance the denizens of the athletics wing might bring down if he was caught.

He deposited his bag carefully beside the door and stood quietly next to some massive machine that looked as though it could rip him in half. Perhaps it would, later.

An idea came to him suddenly, a fragment of curiosity that began to grow in his mind, and…

He stared at the pedals attached to what seemed to be an upright bicycle, with no seat.

His pupils expanded until his fragile brown eyes had been swallowed by a mass of black. He panted. Blood surged under his skin, throbbing veins standing out in his throat. If the room had been equipped with a cardiovascular system, it might have been interesting to examine the readout. 

The pedals were turning.

His face brightened with a kind of frenzy.

_Faster! FASTER!_

The machine began wobbling on it’s enormous stand, the pedals spinning uncontrollably, and there was no reason to think he couldn’t keep them spinning until they cracked apart from stress - and, Credence realized with a chill of not-quite wonder, not-quite fear, he really believed that he could…

Something creaked in the hallway, just outside the door. Credence’s heart gave a lurch and the pedals halted with an awkward jerk. 

He stumbled back against the cinderblock wall, his chest terribly sore and his lungs empty, but reassured. His breath had only just returned when Mr. Graves slipped through the door.

“Well. You’re early.” he grumbled, but with a rare lack of menace. Credence blinked. It was the nearest thing to awkward that he had ever seen in Mr. Graves, and the idea wasn’t fathomable. It was like imagining Ma in heeled shoes.

“So, um… we’re gonna focus on finishing up the volleyball unit - now I’m not concerned about you developing any skill for the game, you’ll never use it for the rest of your life, so uh, the real goal here is to build up core and lower body muscles…”

 

Credence nodded when he was clearly meant to, clutching his gym uniform in both thin hands, and wordlessly admired the gleam on Mr. Graves’ lips when he moistened them.

 

*

 

It was only the next day that Henry Shaw skipped out on his first detention period in the gym, and Percival, not to any great shock, was summoned to the main office.

Any outrage at Henry’s defiance was minimal to non-existent - instead, Percival had watched the rest of the boys dashing back and forth, shooting him ugly looks of increasingly exhausted resentment, and spent most of the time block dwelling on the previous evening.

It turned out that Credence’s appearance rather went against him; though delicate, he was a tough little thing, working his way up four dumbbell weights in one session without even a whimper of complaint. They’d been silent while Percival had driven him home, though he’d considered, in a strange moment of compassion, buying him a frozen milkshake at a drive-through.

Maybe next time. The kid could slurp it down in the car if there was any concern about the reaction at home.

 

The outer office receptionists were whispering frantically to each other with the air of homebodied old maids, and the reason could be glimpsed through Picquery’s glass windows.

Grinding his teeth, Percival knocked on the door, and entered.

 

“Glad you could join us, Mr. Graves -“ Sera greeted him in her Administrative voice, the kind she pulled out for truancy or smoking behind the football bleachers.

“- I believe you know Mr. Shaw?”

 

“Only by reputation.” Percival muttered. Sera shot him a thin-lipped Look.

 

Henry Shaw Senior had the look of a well-built, impressive man who had begun a unstoppable decline into sagging old age, now relying on bespoke suits and capped teeth to instill the sense of intimidation to which he was clearly accustomed. He took up one of Sera’s armchairs as if it were a throne, his fingertips barely forming a pyramid against his chest.

His son had the seat opposite, and no amount of button-downs or cable knit, projecting clean, boy-next-door wholesomeness, could disguise the infuriating smugness painted across his smooth face.

 

“If I might continue, Miss.” Shaw broke in. There was no hint of a question in his statement, and the snub did not go unnoticed. Sera flushed.

“As I was saying, this gym teacher committed a physical assault against my son and used profanity - I’m sure you would agree these actions are a clear abuse of power, as would any jury in the country -“

 

“And as I told you before, Mr. Shaw, I have reprimanded Mr. Graves for his conduct in that instance -“

 

“I’m afraid a scolding is insufficient.” Shaw interrupted. “Furthermore, I’m not convinced it’s appropriate for this man to hold any position of authority over young people; I believe there was some statement that underage girls were more sexually receptive if they had been drugged beforehand?”

 

Henry nodded, big-eyed and pouting, and Percival had to remind himself that actually attacking a minor would only result in another jail stint, probably longer than fifteen months this time.

 

“I want his employment contract terminated immediately, or I bring charges against the school district in open court -“

 

“Dad-?” Henry urged, with the practiced look of a disgraced pup. The urge to throttle him increased.

 

Shaw Senior nodded, waving his hand dismissively.

“- Secondly, full restoration of all my son’s extracurricular privileges. A young man’s final year is -“

 

“Mr. Shaw, a man of your profession should be well aware that bending a rule book is hardly possible,” Sera cut in, a vein throbbing in her brow that Percival recognized as repressed fury. “- additionally, your son has been assigned no fewer than seventy-four detentions this year, fifty-one of which he failed to attend -“

 

“I’m not interested in hearsay or your staff’s attempt to equalize it’s disciplinary policy -“ Shaw interrupted once again, gazing down his nose. Henry’s lip began to curl in an unmistakable sneer.

Percival’s tenuous grip on his temper finally gave way.

 

“Are you aware, _sir_ , that your boy and his posse made threats to castrate a young man with multiple disfigurements? Called a freak, and worse; but here you are lecturing me on -“

 

“Perc-“ Sera warned loudly, but there was no stopping it now.

 

“-physical and verbal abuse; I’ve watched his little goon squad make life a piece of hell for several students, who thanks to your damn string-pulling have seen no real justice for what was done to them -“

 

“This, _this_ is what you find acceptable to place on your staff?” Shaw ranted, staring at Picquery with perfected incredulity. “You’ve wasted enough of my time with baseless allegations to which you can provide no evidence whatsoever-“

 

“Except the video, of course.” Percival broke in, quieter.

 

Henry’s insufferable self-satisfaction cracked slightly, and Percival shoved forward with his advantage - hopefully one that would save his livelihood and take this self-important son of a bitch down several pegs.

 

“That’s assuming you know all about the video, Mr. Shaw - I hear your younger son has ambitions in film, though from what I’ve seen I can’t think there's too wide a market - mm, maybe the morning shows… Get what I’m saying?”

 

Mr. Shaw certainly did. His face had begun redden under his pristine white hair, and the rubicundity only worsened when Sera moved in for the final one-two.

“I’m sure you’re well aware of our reserved rights in addition to your own, sir - and if you find it necessary to file for damages up to and including dismissal of my employees, rest assured that the school district will immediately file charges against your son on behalf of the student in question; and I can promise you that any confiscated video footage will be presented front and center.”

 

Henry jumped up from his seat and elbowed his way out the door, not able to resist the apparent satisfaction of a parting slam. His father was left gaping, before he rose, paused as if he intended to speak but thought the better of it, and quickly followed his son, far more quietly.

Percival let out a breath he hadn’t realized he’d been holding, Sera rolling her eyes.

 

“Well, I’ll update the superintendent - this shitpile seems to be growing by the day-“

 

He nodded, noting with some purely selfish pleasure the choking sound of Henry’s infuriated roars of protest to his father, echoing down the corridor.

 

“By the way -“ Picquery stopped him as he reached for the door handle. “You put in for additional overtime?”

 

“Yeah - remedial sessions, standard stuff.”

 

She gave him the usual quiet, cat-eyed look of incredulity.

“I don’t know what I’m more shocked at, the idea that you of all people took on extra teaching hours or that you know what “remedial” means to begin with.”

He snorted, slipping out of her office as she unclipped her earring and picked up the phone receiver.

 

“I passed tenth grade english, didn’t I?”

 

“Not without me sitting on your face, you didn’t.” Sera muttered, but he was already out of earshot.

 

*

 

Both of them were partial to nicotine after sex, so Julie had thrown the bay window open to let in some air. She said all the smoke made her feel sick. 

The ground staff had been laying down fresh peat all afternoon, and the smell wafted into Henry’s bedroom. It reminded him of burnt sausage.

 

“Just crash the prom - tell ‘em to fuck themselves…” Julie whined, leaning out against the windowsill, the butt of a marlboro dangling from her fingers. The cuticles were starting to yellow.

 

“Yeah - nah- I dunno.” Henry muttered wisely, eyeing her from the mangled bedsheets. Two red handprints stood out on her bare, perfectly heart-shaped ass, and it was almost enough to gear him up for another round. Almost. At least he had until graduation to get in There.

 

If graduation was still slated. Twelve hours ago he’d been blissfully confident that his father could throw around a few fat checks or threats and have him sailing into Harvard. Now he wasn’t so sure.

“Fuck Credence Barebone!” he snapped, in an abrupt fit of rage. “Little praying Jesus - I shoulda chopped it off and shoved it up his fuckin’ -“

 

“Ohmigod, stop!” Julie squealed, her baby-doll face twisted up into irritable disgust. He rolled his eyes, tossing his last smoke into the ashtray. She was lucky she looked so good next to him, otherwise their arrangement wouldn’t have lasted past the first backseat blow job.

 

“Dad’s too chicken-shit to give ‘em what they deserve - but they’re not getting away with it.”

 

Julie moued, settling her chin on his clawed-up abs.

 

“So what’re you gonna do?”

 

“I don’t know yet…” he grumbled. “But everyone’s gonna get a big fucking surprise.”

 

 


	4. Chapter 4

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> We turn a corner in this one... enjoy!

 

“What do you look forward to?” Mr. Graves asked unexpectedly, breaking apart the silence.

Credence chewed at his already ragged lip, his brow furrowing.

“I… I don’t… what do you mean, sir?”

The grooved pattern of the traction mat had started digging into his ankle; he shifted his legs, hoping for relief, but it only transferred the pain to new areas. 

There were no windows in the weight room, no way of telling how much time had passed between hamstring curls and reps on the back extension machine - at least long enough for Mr. Graves to order in sandwiches and a bottled fruit juice for Credence once they’d finished for the day. The breaded chicken felt soggy, but it burned his tongue. Ma would have called it an immoral decadence. 

Mr. Graves took another half-hearted glance at his egg and cheese wrap, before his eyes fell to his hands. A bystander might have said he was afraid, had the idea not been ridiculous.

“Well, we- we all need somethin’ to drive us, otherwise what’s life worth?”

He considered. What, after all, was his life, in it’s entirety? A mute circus sideshow, head meekly bowed while a hailstorm of litter and detritus came raining down… 

“I-I cross off the days on the calendar, every night.” he answered, finally.

“Working towards what?”

The answer remained pulsing and unspoken between them, and Credence stared at the floor.

“…That’s not healthy, you know.”

“I- I don’t think I care, Mr. Graves.”

He thought for a moment that Mr. Graves looked as if someone had taken a filet knife to his insides - but that was stupid to think, because everyone knew that Mr. Graves was untouchable, both externally and in…

“You can’t believe that’s… don’t you think…”

Mr. Graves genuinely seemed to be flailing for words, as always happens when the mind has been handed something it can’t manage to accept. Credence felt a distinct sense of the world tilting, a feeling that the natural order of things was being upset.

“… One day, it’ll be alright.” Mr. Graves finally managed, ignoring Credence’s moue of disbelief.

“It will - it -“ he seemed to come to a decision, lumbering to his feet like a panther recovered from sleep.

“Come over here - come on.”

Credence stood, hesitantly, and followed him to the wall of mirrored panelling at the other side of the room.

He’d wondered, at the start of their time together, why a weight room had mirrors, but had concluded (maybe a bit spitefully, but hadn’t he earned it) that it was probably to allow the jocks the satisfaction of admiring their supple bodies and hard-hewn muscle. 

Mr. Graves drew him in front of his spindly, dark-eyed reflection, framing his delicate shoulders in both hands.

“What d’you see here? Because all that’s in front of me is a young man with a big heart, who’s so strong he’s been able to stand up straight after years of being smacked back down… I don’t think you know how much you’ve done these last couple of weeks. You could get anywhere, do anything with your mind, and… and you’ll make somebody so happy one day…”

Credence felt his cheeks color in a red splatter.

“…Why?” he whispered, his voice breaking. “Why would anyone want me?”

He felt a brief surge of disorientation, as the hands on his shoulders spun him round and suddenly, for the first time in conscious memory, he felt the warmth of human skin near his face as Mr. Graves pulled him close.

The moment was short-lived. Mr. Graves eased away from him, losing his abrupt urgency, and turned back towards their little fast-food picnic near the traction mats.

Credence was not worldly or well-travelled. He couldn’t have explained how he knew that look he saw in his teacher’s eyes, but perhaps it was an instinctive knowledge, like swallowing and breathing.

Mr. Graves had wanted to kiss him.

This man who’d seen him screaming and bloodied and almost naked… like a twisted little lizard, it’s skin half-shed. It didn't make any logical sense, but…

But…

“You oughta eat your sandwich before it gets too cold.” Mr. Graves muttered to him, eyes downcast and his face red. 

Credence sat down and ate his sandwich. The consciousness of what had occurred moved between them, unspoken but achingly present.

“This.” he whispered, barely louder than a sigh.

“What?”

“I - I look forward to this, Mr. Graves.”

 

*

 

“Always knew you’d be a queer.”

Something humming at the back of his skull, Percival turned his focus back to the cluster of framed photos on the corner shelf, black and sepia gradually giving way to neon holographic brightness. 

Most parents might have had a candid shot or two of a young boy angling on a rotting dock, or chewing on salt water caramel, and later saluting the camera, green-splotched BDUs still creased from the packaging.

Instead, the same blonde woman stared heavy-lidded from behind every frame, beehived and hoop-earringed. Brigitte Bardot with stress lines. One of Percival’s clearer memories was of the early mornings at the bathroom sink, watching her cake on foundation to try and hide the premature ravaging. 

He couldn’t wash his mind of the previous night - couldn’t forget the soft pink blush dusting Credence Barebone’s lovely cheekbones, his arms full of gently pulsating, beautiful boy, eyes like a soft, shy little animal, fearfully allowing itself to feel something new and exhilarating…

Christ, had Credence ever had a pet? The thought came to him suddenly, irrationally. 

One day he’d buy him all the little furry animals his sweet heart desired…

The growing fantasy would have to wait; the old man was rasping again.

“”S my fault… Tryin’ t’get it right too many times… weakens the stock.”

He didn’t visit his father often, and wouldn’t have but for filial responsibility laws that were thick as stone, screw blood and water. 

Funny in a way. Just when you thought you’d escaped Hell, the state forces you to turn out your pockets to keep the devil alive.

All the soft furniture covered in waterproof plastic. Coffin-sized machines hissing, plunging, and prolonging the inevitable, pumping blood through the old man’s destroyed liver, pock-marked like the left cheek of an acne-ravaged fifteen year old. Not much of a life worth preserving, in Percival’s opinion.

He’d always known George Graves was full of shit. Now he could smell it.

“You taking your meds?”

A dry laugh rattled out of George’s wobbling throat.

“‘Sound like your mother. God, that woman…”

He knew what would follow. A love letter followed by a tirade, and finally a baffled frown that would explode into a storm of cursing and violent struggles while he tried to make sense of it all, until his son and an underpaid nurse would have to hold him to the wheelchair. Like calming a toddler mid-tantrum. 

Surprisingly, he paused instead, staring at him with a degree of revulsion that Percival hadn’t seen since the fourth time Sera crept in after midnight. (It had taken a while for the officers on duty to explain that in 1984, black men had the right to sue anyone who nicked their daughter’s shoulder with a .22 caliber. Somehow they never noticed the kid with a ring of split bruises around his eye.)

“You think you’re foolin’ anybody, struttin’ around like god-damned Goliath - once shit’s in the blood it stays there, ’til you’re pukin’ up water.”

Percival huffed, reaching for the buzzer.

“Only good thing about this, Dad? I can watch them shut you up with a syringe whenever I ask.”

“I mean you’re no better than me, whatever some smart-ass with a degree tells ya -“

He pointed jerkily to the whitish film on his right eye.

“They say these cataracts are genetic, boy. Don’t think I don’t see you blinkin’ around the lamps.”

For a long moment Percival didn’t speak. He couldn’t have said himself whether or not it was by choice.

There were some things he simply didn’t allow himself to consider, even among all the mounting evidence of what was coming, what he might do with and to that beautiful boy, but now that the seed had taken root it was impossible to tear free.

He knelt in front of the chair, brow furrowing as a long unconsidered question suddenly came to mind. 

“Dad… if having four babies dead on delivery almost killed Mom, why’d you keep getting her pregnant?”

The loose flesh under his chin wobbled a moment as his jaw hung, working like a hooked fish.

“… Men… have… needs.”

 

*

 

Henry cussed and threatened until Julie tearfully agreed to drive him out to the farm by Potter’s Creek, the night of the senior prom.

Hank Warner held the property lease out there - no one would ask questions if his daughter’s Lexus was seen on the path up to the gate.

Her manicured hands tight on the furry pink steering wheel, Julie pulled the car into a sharp curve where the road melted into a dirt-and-pebble cul de sac, framed by a split-rail fence. It scented the night air with fresh-cut pine, like hot popcorn. A few apple trees were visible over the hill and somewhere nearby - probably from the white-planked barn - a cow lowed, probably craving an evening snack.

The ignition purred to a halt, while Henry fished something out of the glove compartment. Langdon and Terrance Rowle - who was as wired as an electric fence - shuffled round to the spotless white trunk and popped it open.

“Stay here.” Henry muttered to Julie as he flipped his knife out of the sheath, admiring it the same way he leered over several jpg files on his computer. “Fix your face or something, and don’t talk.”

Julie sniffled, glaring at him. Her navy blue gown - specially dyed to avoid clashing with her auburn coiffure - had been ordered from Neiman Marcus and the hair and nail appointment scheduled six months in advance. 

The idea had come to him the night before. It made some kind of blurry, poetic sense; pig’s blood for a pig.

A porker. Wasn’t that what they called boars that weren’t… quite right, down there? Only good for having their throats sliced open and bleeding out.

Pig’s blood for a porker.

Terrence hefted the nine-pound sledgehammer, Langdon the eight gallon bucket, and at Henry’s nod they made their way up the path towards the straw-lined enclosure, where two sows lay sleeping peacefully, unknowingly in the fading moments of their lives.

 

*

  
  
The prom theme that year was “Under the Sea.” Breathtakingly original.

All those saps with too-big grins from the student council had spent several hours draping the gym in blue and green sparkly organza, cardboard cut-outs of coral beds and a sunken anchor placed near the photo-op. The refreshments table was scattered with little plastic fish.

Percival had been railroaded into chaperoning thanks to Vinda from the math department, aka Miss Prom Committee herself, and he had concluded that while he was expected - nay, demanded - to be present, it didn’t mean he had to get into the so-called spirit of the proceedings: which, judging by the view on the dance floor, seemed to translate to a good deal of simulated intercourse. Multiple girls had walked away in disgust, their bare feet stained by something on the carpet that he hoped to god was spilled punch.

They clumped into twos or sometimes groups - the ones with nests of pimples on their faces primarily made up the latter - but mostly, lots of couples. For the girls, this was a night of magic and the pinnacle of romance; for the boys, an easy path to getting their dicks wet. But the starry-eyed look was constant with all of them. 

Percival envied their youth.

He scanned the sequined, tuxedoed crowds, half-hopeful - maybe he’d be tucked into the corner, a little rose blossom pinned to his white button-down - but it was futile and he knew that. By senior year, the club outcasts had learned better than to think that one night, one disappointing, less than grand entrance could change anything.

“You could’ve cleaned up a little better.” Sera commented from over his shoulder.

She was immaculate as always, pearl-set golden hoops dangling from each earlobe. She exuded a heady scent of tiger lily perfume, dove soap, and breath mints.

Percival tugged at his own shabby, dark green button down with something that came dangerously close to self-consciousness.

“Guess the stains got set in.”

She hummed, not quite agreeing.

They stood in silence a moment, Craig Reid’s screech amplified over the massive speaker system;

_“But Ah wood wahlk feive hundred myeels an’ Ah wood wahlk feive hundred moarh…”_

“Remember our prom night?”

He did. He remembered Sera in her honey-blond days, her hair crimped and teased into a massive cloud, wearing something like a green taffeta bubble… and he remembered ditching her so he could throw up about two liters of whiskey behind the gymnasium doors. 

Romance had seemed like a pretty pointless endeavor after that.

Come to think of, he hadn’t been serious with anyone since - just quick and filthy gropes between scratchy motel sheets or in bar restrooms after he’d worked out what his preferences actually were, and hadn’t been enough of a man to admit it.

Maybe, against all odds, there was something to Dad’s toxic rambling… maybe it wasn’t fate that shaped their destinies, but family - 

No, damn it, he was his own man, he knew when he was after a quick screw against the bricks and when he…

When…

That thought was too complex and too frightening, so he left it incomplete.

A pair of teenage lovers swept by, giggling, and Percival followed them with his eyes into one of the darker corners, behind the seaweed-green balloon tower. He expected them to kiss, and of course they did, hungrily but sweetly, the girl on her toes to reach the boy’s lips, his fingers playing over the shell of her ear.

That was something Credence Barebone would never have the opportunity to experience…

“I have to leave.”

Picquery only sighed in reply.

 

*

 

Services were held on the Sacred Days: every Sunday, Tuesday, and Friday. The sermon could last anywhere from three to four hours; Ma preaching to her captive congregation of one.

When he was finally allowed upstairs, Credence closed the door to his little closet of a room and stretched his shoulders with a whine. Muscles popped in his back, traumatized after kneeling so long, head bowed before the altar. 

He’d allowed his mind to wander while Ma raged on hellfire and disobedient sons imbued with the willfulness of He with the Split Foot, sins of the foul mother visited upon the child. Credence had heard it before. A re-run, some might call it. The first time had been when he was eight, and burning with fever. Miss Queenie next door had brought them soup, only for Ma to slam the door in her face and rail to the almighty until Credence had dropped unconscious at her feet, red and yellow spots dancing in front of his eyes.

But he didn’t like thinking about that. They were dulled, faded memories anyway, and Ma didn’t talk about the past.

Better to think of good things.

As if by magic, just at that moment, a car horn blasted twice outside the house. He ran to the window and his heart jumped into his mouth as Mr. Graves climbed out of his road-scarred old VW and looked up towards him. The street light gleamed down over his greying hair, highlighting the swells and valleys of muscle under his olive green shirt, and he was handsome, alive, sparkling with electricity in the dark on their little street…

He waved towards the house, beckoning ( _But he, beckoning unto them with the hand to hold their peace, declared unto them how the Lord had brought him out of the prison_ ) and it suddenly seemed that some crisis point had been reached, something aching and painful was on the point of rupture.

Credence sucked in a breath, sweating terribly, then tucked his wallet into his back pocket and opened his bedroom door.

There were only three steps left on the staircase when he heard her.

“Credence. Where are you going?” She spoke quite calmly, her back to him as her feet worked the treadle of the ancient sewing machine.

“Just… Just out with a friend.” He was trembling, his hand latched on the bannister as if it were the one salvation between life and drowning. But he had tread water long enough, he realized with a jolt. It was time to plunge.

“He - he’ll drive me back later, you don’t have to stay up late -“

The sewing was forgotten. Ma turned, slowly, dreadfully, her eyes wide with can’t-believe-my-ears incredulity. 

“No.”

A hard knot of desperation was forming in his throat, and he pressed her, finally letting go of the stair rail and moving towards the door.

“Please, Ma, it’s only one evening - I’ll be back by -“

A tomato-shaped pincushion narrowly missed his cheek, and hit the wall with a clatter of needles. She smiled crookedly.

“He’ll hurt you.”

Credence recoiled, shaking.

“Ma-!”

“I know your kind, oh I know, he’ll take you out where it’s cold, he’ll take you, paw at you- and you’ll slobber for him like a dog -“

“Ma, stop it-!” he wailed, backing away, prepared to turn and run for the door, only to be halted by a deceptively small hand striking his face.

“The belt. Now. Give me the belt. _”_

_“NO MA!”_ Credence screamed.

Every piece of furniture within sight rose several feet and crashed back down.

Ma shrieked, falling as if her feet had been kicked from under her.

He stared a moment, eyes locked on her shivering form clutched up on the rug, her knee resting on Eve’s naked, hooked-yarn belly.

Anyone watching preternaturally through the thick curtains might have thought he was shocked at the sight of Ma reduced to a gibbering fool. Actually, he had never considered that the Power might be capable of more than making books float in the air like soap bubbles, or stirring broth on the old range - all at once he saw himself clearly, as something shining and terrible, and what he saw in that moment horrified him.

“…Ma, stand up.” Credence whispered - whimpered - his feet shifting.

She watched him like a rabbit watches the cottonmouth about to lunge at it.

_She’s scared of me._ He realized all at once. _She’s scared she thinks I could bring the whole house down make it collapse into a pile and.. and I think I could, Ma, I really think I could…_

_“_ Ma _, stand up.”_ he ordered her this time, as without thinking, almost outside of his own will, his hand shot up and Mrs. Barbone shot up with it.

She dangled there, her feet in their too-big clogs hanging about forty-eight inches from the ground, and a hoarse bellow - not quite a scream, more surprise than pain - ripped from her throat.

“… Ma, I’m going now.”

“…Witch.” Ma snarled, still hanging like a corpse on the gallows, and Credence quivered miserably.

“I’m not a witch, Ma.” he bleated. “There are no witches.”

She had begun muttering frantically, and he realized after half a second that it wasn’t the Lord’s Prayer, as he expected, but the Prayer of Exorcism from Deuteronomy.

“Pray all you like, Ma - but I’m still going… And I don’t think anything will stop me.”

He released her, dropping her onto the rug like a stone. Almost immediately, she began sobbing.

“I’ll be back later.” he whispered. “Don’t stay up.”

He went to the door, and on further reflection - but perhaps it was only nerves - pulled on a blue jacket. Then he left, closing the door behind him.

 

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> Hope you liked it! This will be the final update for a short time, while I crank out another au idea that's been eating my brain - hopefully it won't take terribly long, and I'll be back to this one soon!
> 
> Thanks for reading and all your helpful comments!


	5. Chapter 5

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> Smut.
> 
> I owe season 2 of "True Detective" so many apologies.
> 
> Warning for a relatively non-graphic description of child abuse near the end - you can sort of draw your own conclusions about it. If you'd like the specifics prior to reading, please message me on twitter @FlagsDiamonds
> 
> Enjoy!

 

They pulled into the motel around nine pm, just as it started to bucket down. It was one of those little places run by a grandmotherly woman who always has a plate of oatmeal cookies on hand - presumably to make up for the stink of her husband’s grass stash.

Someone had planted a bed of pansies along the brick foundation. Pansies had strange little faces, Percival thought - like bassett hounds frowning before a snarl. They were waterlogged and drooping now - the hounds had aged a decade in a moment.

He checked them in under an assumed name and signed for a room with twin beds. No need for the meager staff to make assumptions just yet. They were already surprised at the lack of luggage.

Credence settled himself in as if it were a daily occurrence; his little jacket hung neatly in the moldy linen closet and his feet under the fold out table by the window, as he fished through a blue plastic bag, the logo of a nearby convenience store obscured by a beading of raindrops. He colored pink when he pulled out a bottle of whiskey and a pack of plastic cups.

 

“I’ve got some…” Percival trailed off, the six pack of sprite cans dangling from his fingers forgotten as Credence peeled off his sopping button-down and draped it over the decrepit radiator in the corner. The thin, white t-shirt underneath hadn’t avoided being soaked as well, and flashes of pink skin were visible through the translucent fabric.

Evidently, the blush went all the way down.

Not wanting to dwell on that too long and loose his already tenuous finger-grip on his self-control, Percival tugged a soda off the plastic ring and set it on the table with a hollow clunk. There was a hiss of carbonation as Credence snapped the tab open and poured a carefully measured amount into one of the cups, as if he were the one drinking hard liquor.

They sat opposite each other at the rickety table for a long while, crickets outside the window seeming to chirp along with Madonna as she crooned tinnily from the clock-radio.

 

“…Why am I here, Mr. Graves?” Credence asked eventually. His hair was still dripping and a shiver had begun in his shoulders.

 

Sighing, Percival took a long sip, relishing the burn in his throat as a well-deserved flagellation.

 

“… I didn’t want you all alone on Prom Night.”

 

Credence considered that for a moment - as long as he could bear. It seemed for a moment that he was swimming through a dream of lost hopes, and had only just realized the fact.

 

“But…I - I was-”

 

“You know what I found out, a long time ago?” Percival interrupted quietly. Cigarette tar roughened each word into a grumble. His throat might as well have been filled with dirt.

 

“I, uh… I always thought you had to, you know, get bruised up and bleed to really be hurt - for it to really count, you know? Because otherwise, if it’s just calling you shit and shouting and pushing you down and down and down, then… well, you can handle that, yeah? You have to or it means you’re weak… and they were right all along.”

 

He glanced at the half full cup, and considered draining it. Changed his mind.

 

“You’ve got it the other way around, don’t you?”

 

With a silent intake of breath that made his thin chest contract, Credence looked up. Ran his eyes over Percival’s face in the ugly yellow light. His lips parted slightly.

 

“I - I don’t like talking about that.” he mumbled, with something as close to decisiveness as he could probably reach. Percival’s heart creaked rustily.

 

“Okay.”

 

The rain was still clattering on the windows outside, streaming torrentially through the gutters. 

Credence poured himself another soda, and when the cup was empty again, let out a quavering little sigh.

 

_“… You’re not a bad person, Mr. Graves…”_

 

For a long moment, Percival gazed at him, the words not quite making sense, as if someone had garbled them before they could reach his mind. He realized he wasn’t entirely sure if Credence had actually spoken.

 

“…Yes.” he finally managed, as if it were the most obvious thing in the world. “… Yes, I am.”

 

The radiator hummed in the corner, and while Percival took another trembling sip of whiskey Credence’s little white hand crept across the table, curling tightly around his own.

He stroked his knuckles with his thumb, traces of old bruising visible on the pale skin - the kind made by a birch rod, not a self-righteous blow.

It would have been better, he supposed in the weakening half of his brain that dealt with matters of conscience, if Credence had made the first move. It wouldn’t lessen his own guilt technically, but he could reassure himself that there was no question here of coercion, or anything nastier. 

But Credence had stayed put in the ladder back chair, trembling, until Percival drew him onto his feet and closed his arms around his thin, shivering body.

Warm breath huffed rapidly onto the skin above his collar. Credence’s hands fluttered at first, uncertain, before latching onto his shoulders, fingertips digging into muscle and meat like a drowning swimmer pulling down his rescuer. 

His skin was hot, hotter then he’d felt in the weight room, searing through the wet shirt until he burned like molten gold in Percival’s grip - 

Reflexively, he crushed his mouth to the boy’s jaw, working his way up to a little elfin cheekbone, and Credence mewed, the tremors increasing.

He wondered suddenly if Credence had ever recieved so much as a fond peck on his forehead. A vague, half-forgotten memory came drifting back, words from that boring film his mother had liked; _You need kissing, badly. You should be kissed, and often, and by someone who knows how._

 

There wasn’t a lot of responsibility Percival was willing to take on, in any respect, but he’d accept that one gladly.

 

Credence’s grip on him somehow managed to tighten while Percival cupped the back of his head, his doe eyes wide and almost terrified, but before Percival was able to close the distance - at last - he seemed to master his dread of the unknown and dove forward.

It wasn’t clean. A wet, artless pressing of lips, but what Credence lacked in knowledge he made up for with sheer enthusiasm. Percival could taste the soda on him, almost but not quite covering a foul, medicinal mouthwash and something viciously protective unfurled inside his ribcage.

He pulled back, half sobbing for breath. A thread of saliva connected their mouths for an instant before snapping.

Percival stroked a lock of black hair behind his ear.

 

“We can slow down, if you need to…”

 

Credence’s lips were shinier than what half the cheerleading squad bitches could ever dream of, tubes of gloss at the ready. His breath whistled when he spoke, a knot clearly lodged in his throat.

 

“But… isn’t this what you’re supposed to do, on prom night?”

 

Percival tugged him close again.

They kissed for a long while, a wordless education taking place. Credence stiffened at the first careful nudge of tongue, but gradually let himself be guided by instinct and curiosity. 

Somehow or other they wound up on the scratchy coverlet dressing the bed in blue and yellow cabbage roses. A cigarette burn was visible near the pillow fold.

Credence sat back abruptly with a smack of lips, flushed and panting, but his eyes had brightened with uncertainty.

 

“M-Mr. Graves - are-are we going to -?”

 

He petted his cheek, knuckles grazing a faint, pink rash his attentions had left behind. Damn it, he ought to have shaved.

 

“You feel ready for that, sweetheart?” he rasped, because holy shit -

 

Credence swallowed uncomfortably, his swollen lips worried between his teeth.

 

“I- I want to, so bad - you-you’re like an angel, Mr. Graves - it’s just, with - with _everything_ , I -“ he blushed horribly. “-I don’t know if - if I’ll - you know, if it’ll still -“

 

“Oh _Christ -_ “

 

It was an involuntary response to shock, but Credence flinched back, his chin trembling.

 

“I-I’m really sorry, I should’ve thought -“

 

“Hey -“ Percival grabbed his hips before he could climb out of his lap entirely, pulling his loose khaki trousers taut across the front. They both noticed the outline of his half-hard cock simultaneously, and Credence’s whimper of embarrassment turned into a jolt when Percival ground the heel of his palm over the bulge.

 

“Look - baby - what happened, what you’ve been through… it’d fuck anybody up, things probably won’t always work right…But it- it doesn’t mean you’re broken - the pieces just fit together a little differently.”

 

He stroked a thumb over the little furrow in Credence’s brow, smoothing away the lines.

 

“Let’s give it a try, alright?”

 

He nodded, still blushing, and with fierce, adorable concentration, began undoing the buttons down the front of Percival’s stained shirt.

 

Their constant pauses for another frantic kiss, and then another, and another, made undressing a slow process, but eventually Credence rose up on his knees at a coaxing pat, using a grip on Percival’s shoulders to balance himself in his lap as a greying pair of briefs were pulled down his thighs, and -

He choked, hiding his reddened face against Percival’s neck. A dog barked at something outside.

 

“Mr. Graves - “ a little coo drifted up, half-muffled from where Credence had burrowed himself away. “Could you - please - you have to - I can’t -“

 

He rubbed his back, as if soothing a frightened infant.

 

“Would you feel better, underneath me?”

 

After a moment, Credence nodded - but the little shiver that ran through his body at the words was more than telling, and Percival relaxed slightly.

He crumpled the bedspread into a lump and tossed it into the corner, before pouring the boy out on his back across the sheets (the fabric smooth as cream - at least god wasn’t entirely without a heart - god has nothing to do with this, damn it) and mouthing across his knee. Tiny scars dotted the white skin, and he forced himself to ignore them.

Credence had pressed his thighs together, one testicle caught snugly between them as he blindly followed the lesson that life had beaten into his head, and tried to keep himself hidden from prying eyes. Well, they could work on undoing those particular damages later - just then, Percival had other plans in mind.

Blunt nails left pale tracks all the way down Credence’s chest, the white lines quickly turning pink, and he let out a confused, fitful little chirp - which instantly transmuted to a choked wail as his nipples were each caught inside a tight pinch.

 

“Mr. Gr-!”

 

“Shh. Just relax. If it hurts, tell me.”

 

Credence nodded, his eyes glistening wetly as the grip eased and became a light, stroking tickle - just unfulfilling enough to be overwhelming. His belly fluttered with every whimper.

Cursing himself for not having paid up for a travel bottle of lube, Percival’s only option was a few quick laps of his tongue across sensitive skin - Credence shrieked, wriggling so desperately he had to be held down - until they were wet enough for his fingertips to glide over, and when that experimentation proved successful he grazed his teeth across the tiny nub, sucking until it felt as though half of Credence’s chest had filled his mouth. 

Sweat had gathered in the shallow depression between bird-like collarbones, a mate to the sticky fluids seeping onto his belly ( _yes, that’s it sweetheart see how wet we can getcha before we’re done)_ and when he trailed three fingers through the growing puddle and between quivering thighs, Credence’s tenuous self-control finally broke. 

Frantic little fists curled tight into Percival’s unwashed hair at the first, careful touch over his opening, dragging him back up until he could wriggle his tongue back into a hot, dark-tasting mouth.

 

*

 

Ma would have called it the taste of sin. Credence doubted she would have known it had the essence been poured down her throat.

He was flying, soaring, _lost,_ his only hope to cling to his Mr. Graves and pray he wouldn’t let him fall. Coarse chest hair rubbed at his sore nipples, setting them to tingling, and something in his belly jumped - an animal within an animal.

His grip tightened at that hesitant, exploring caress between his legs, right over that filthy place he couldn’t bear to think about, much less imagine touching - but Mr. Graves knew, he was of the world, he could protect him, Credence was _safe_ \- but when a fingertip barely eased inside him, filling his belly with a desperate tickle, he forgot every plea, every prayer, and squealed helplessly into the kiss.

One finger slipped in, then another, the way slickened by - his face went hot - the wetness that was still leaking from his poor wounded member like honey, and if he hadn’t been so overwhelmed he might have wondered if it were possible to die from shame. 

Mr. Graves pulled back from the kiss - Credence whimpered, trying to follow him with his lips, he liked kissing - just long enough to shuck off his damp jeans one-handed, shoving them somewhere out of sight, and Credence’s breath came up short.

 

_And God made Adam in his own image…_

 

He wanted to touch, every tight, desperate inch of his flesh screamed, ordered him to, but nerves kept him pinned to the warm sheets like a specimen in Mr. Scamander’s class, and he could only mewl wordlessly for a bit of contact.

Mr. Graves had three fingers inside him now - it felt like more, perhaps half a hand - his gaze fixed intently between Credence’s legs. He squirmed, whining ( _he’s looking at me he can_ see _it)_ until Mr. Graves finally took pity on him and began stroking inside.

Credence wailed soundlessly, his eyes enormous. This wasn’t mercy, this was… but something was happening, something new and frightening, and… 

 

He twitched in Mr. Graves’ hands, lost in the sensation, in how good it felt to have something he could clutch down on, hard. His heart pounded in a frenzy, and he wondered for a hazy moment if he might be dying -

 

The lights buzzed, flickered. A bulb blew out in one of the bedside lamps.

 

When the smoke had cleared from his eyes, he glanced down to where Mr. Graves was nuzzling his stomach, with the softest expression Credence had ever seen him give.

 

“Not broken at all, sweetheart…”

 

He crawled up between his legs, arranging them so that Credence’s body held him like a cradle, and drew a line with his tongue through the sweat glistening on his throat, likely to distract him a bit from the blunt pressure at his -

Credence stiffened, moaning with a heady blend of fear and desire, but when Mr. Graves paused and caught him in a searching look, he nodded wordlessly and splayed both hands over his back. 

The stretch was scary at first, dragging whimpers and mewls and squeals from a secret place deep in his gut, but once Mr. Graves was sheathed inside him to the hilt, panting bullishly - all at once it didn’t matter any longer.

 

*

 

Nothing could have prepared him.

Percival had been the first for a couple of guys - well, at least the first time with another man - he knew what a virgin felt like on the inside, had been treated once or twice to starry-eyed looks that stroked his ego and let him bask, for a moment, in the idea that someone could give a damn.

Wrapped around him in a swathe of delicate limbs, Credence began crying silently, and stared up at him with absolute worship.

 

All previous encounters seemed like pale shadows of the reality at hand.

 

He didn’t expect to last long - tight, warm muscles gripping him too well, tear-bright eyes fixed on his own, his chest ready to burst with sheer adoration for this sweet, shattered boy - but, he considered, rocking his hips a little faster, that didn’t mean he couldn’t be a gentleman.

Credence scrambled for purchase on his back, his finger-grip sliding in the perspiration.

 

“M-Mr. Graves - I think I’m - I can’t-!”

 

“Percival.” he groaned, jolting the poor kid with a particularly firm thrust against a sensitive spot, his thumb smoothing over a damp eyebrow. “I think it oughta be Percival by now.”

 

Credence squirmed helplessly, moments before his jaw dropped and every muscle went rigid.

 

Percival had never managed to make a guy come through fucking alone. Pornography had gone a long way in convincing him that prostate orgasms were a myth – all that wailing and thrashing around and eye-rolling couldn’t be real.

But Credence – sweet, downtrodden little Credence who probably never imagined something like this could happen – he wouldn’t know how to fake it.

 

His back arched, deeper and deeper until each rib stood out clearly under his pale skin, his parted lips trembling as if in shock, while semen erupted from his body and painted his heaving belly.

When Percival followed him down, seconds later, he swore he felt his eardrums bulge with the intensity.

 

*

 

“I - I used to draw a little, when I was about ten.” he mumbled. “It wasn’t very good, just - just dogs I saw on the street sometimes. I think I wanted one for a while, but…”

 

When he didn’t continue, Percival tried prompting him.

 

“Why’d you stop?”

 

Something shifted in the air, and he regretted speaking.

 

It had taken roughly fifteen minutes for them to get their breath back, and for the feeling to return in Credence’s legs. 

They were both coated in dried sweat and probably stank to high hell, but not even an act of God would have convinced Percival to get them out of bed, just then.

He’d reached under the stale-smelling pillow, grabbed one of the motel’s off-brand mints. Unwrapped it, swallowed it down in a gulp. Credence had declined one of his own.

Afterwards, they’d made love again.

 

It was 11:14. The rain had paused, finally, but there was a ripe, anticipatory scent in the air, hinting that the sky could break open again at any moment.

They’d settled into a tangle of cheap motel bedsheets, Credence pillowing his head a few inches below Percival’s collarbone and lying still to enjoy the aftershocks - his brain bathing in a soup of hormones that could get you higher than speed. It could also make you talk, maybe a little too much.

Credence breathed in shakily.

 

“M-Ma found my notebook one day, and - and - She said I’d made it into an idol, so -“

 

Warm moisture had begun collecting on Percival’s chest while Credence trembled - but not from fear or grief, he realized with a faint shock.

Credence was ashamed.

 

“… what, baby?”

 

He gulped down a mouthful of tears.

 

“-so I had to rip out every single page while she watched, and - and eat them. _All_ of them, even the ones I hadn’t used. And when I - when it all came back out, she…”

 

“…What?”

 

“… she made me swallow it again.”

 

The radiator clunked metallically, and Percival realized that in all his life, he’d never actually considered killing a woman. Men, sure, but not the opposite sex. He could remember Dad grinding that into his head young - one of his three rock solid tenants; always vote against the curve, the only good black was a dead one, and never raise a hand to a woman. At least, that was what he preached; in practice, well, Percival had always suspected, without direct confirmation, that his own mother could have told a few stories.

Most of Dad’s philosophy had been tossed down the sewer where it belonged once Percival was old enough to have a single thought of his own, but that last had managed to bite down hard until now.

It took an _artistically_ sick mind to come up with something like that, and actually carry it out.

Fuck, Credence was damned lucky he hadn’t died of bacterial poisoning or something similar… he must’ve been in so much pain…

He squeezed him close. Pressed tightened lips to his black hair.

 

“… Who hurt you, Mr. Graves?” Credence whispered with a sniffle, his fingers curling around a thick bicep, and Percival stilled.

 

“…I… I don’t think it really matters…”

 

“I showed you mine.” he muttered dryly, and well, he had a point. Didn’t make going through with it any easier though. If it really had been a dirty children’s game they were playing, Percival would’ve been out from under the porch and two blocks away already, his dick rock hard in green cargo shorts.

 

“Let’s just say… there have to be better ways of turning boys into men.”

 

Credence lifted his head slowly - a thin crust of salty tears had dried around his eyelashes. Emotions crossed his face as quickly as changing thought; confusion, outrage, sympathy, sorrow.

 

In the end, he settled for curling his fingers around Percival’s unshaven jaw, and offering another kiss - deeper this time, as if he could drag out all the bruised and wounded pieces and leave a soul picked clean, ripe for healing.

 

Percival tightened a pair of craggy arms around him, and wished him every success.

 

Three weeks later, he would think on those few rainy, grey days, and hope they had been good - that Credence had enjoyed them, and felt beautiful and wanted and loved. Before the Terror began, he hoped it had been magical.

 


	6. Chapter 6

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> Do not hurt me. That's all I can say.

 

As soon as the crepe and balloons from Prom had been torn down, the gym was stripped afresh, scuff marks and grit buffed out of the floor and the commencement podium wheeled to a place of honor beneath the upraised basketball hoop. Daffodils potted in green foil had been ordered in bulk from a local grocery-brand florist. Due to a clerical error, they had been delivered a week early. Everyone had heard Miss Rosier arguing over speakerphone during the transition between afternoon class periods. It must have been particularly bad - her accent had been growing stronger with every syllable.

 

The ceremony would take place atop one of the generalized black platforms rolled out for every “official” school function - all black iron and hinges and knotty grey carpet. The offending premature daffodils had been reprieved from banishment in one of the cafeteria freezers, and now lined the front and sides of the dias, though the effect was less celebratory and more funereal.

 

At the front-right of the platform, someone had marked out in duct-tape where the robed and capped graduates should plant their feet throughout the handing of the diploma, the requisite handshake, and photo snap for the grandparents.

 

Terrance Rowle had drilled two pulleys into place behind the decorative arch overhanging the podium. Six fresnel lights hung precariously from the PVC pipe frame, the crassness of the raw hardware concealed by a line of giant plywood diamonds, painted in the school colors. Anyone looking up would probably assume that the steel bucket was just a ballast filled with sand.

 

It had still been frozen solid when he hefted it up onto the beam - two weeks in the freezer buried under a half ton of daffodils would do that - but it would surely be thawed and syrupy fluid again by the next evening.

 

Of course, none of it was Terrance’s logic. He’d merely swiped the pulley set from the ACE hardware store. It was Henry who’d called in the favor, one of many in mythological existence.

 

He was with Julie Warner, of course, in her second floor bedroom on 301 Collinsville Street. Terrance wondered about the quality of sex, with women in general and Julie, red-headed and pink lipped, as a particular example.

 

He suspected _that_ pussy felt like the gates of Heaven. Langdon hadn’t been sparing in his stories of eavesdropping adventures.

 

Steadying the bucket a final time, he climbed back down the utility ladder, dug out his ancient flip phone - the best his mother could afford on two shifts tending bar - and shot Henry a text that was mostly acronyms.

The reply was only a thumbs up emoticon.

 

*

 

“Have a seat.”

Sera’s hair looked suspiciously dry, as though a strictly held regimen had begun falling apart. Her face seemed naked without the customary dusky-pink lipstick. Most would simply look casually dressed - on Sera, the effect was one of complete dishevelment. 

When Percival obediently settled into one of the armchairs framing her desk, black eyes shot him a withering look, and his mounting discomfort worsened.

“So. Last day of school.” she began, tersely.

 

“… Yeah.”

 

“Any plans for the evening?”

 

In fact, yes. 

After their three days in the motel room (Credence had called home once, not wanting to worry his mother for some inexplicable reason, and whatever had been said left him pale for half an hour. Percival had set about soothing the hurts with all his raw talent.) they had continued their meetings in the weight room once the classes were over. After each day as an unwilling sideshow act, Credence seemed to need it. Percival had never found so much aching desperation inside one person.

But that wasn’t for Sera to know.

 

“… Not really.”

 

She sighed, manicured fingers fanning over her mouth.

 

“You sure your… how did we put it earlier? Your… “remedial” student won’t need attention?”

 

Something plunged in his gut.

 

“… I don’t think I get what you’re…”

 

“Don’t bullshit me Graves, we both know that’s not one of your top skills.” she muttered icily, tapping something out on her silvery keyboard.

 

“This was pulled off the hall tapes by security yesterday evening. Officially, I’m obligated to submit copies to both law enforcement and the board of education, and informing you beforehand is an ethical breach that could cost me my career. Understood?”

 

He didn’t bother to look at the screen as she wrenched it around, knowing perfectly well what he would see. It had been three pm on the dot, the buses had rolled out, the athletics wing had been deserted… and Credence had whimpered, throwing both spindly arms around his neck and clamoring for a much needed kiss. He hadn't even dropped his backpack before Percival was grappling with the buttons on his pants, backing him into a nearby utility closet. His intentions couldn’t have been more obvious, and somehow, _somehow,_ he had forgotten all about the cameras poised at every hall corner.

 

There were crumbs on the green-knit carpet, probably sacrifices from a recent working lunch. Percival counted them as he bit his tongue, attempted unsuccessfully to stave off another shaking breath.

He stood, and began pacing frenetically.

 

“I can’t make this disappear completely,” she was saying, distantly it seemed. Everything was singing in his ears as if he’d been submerged in cold water.

“- and I can’t save your job, however little you care about it, but I’m willing to give you forty-eight hours before I contact authorities. Used wisely, that’s enough time to liquidate your accounts and -“

 

“No, I can’t - it’s not just - Sera, he needs me -“

 

Her jaw tightened.

 

“This is my only offer, Percival - take it, or I swear to God I’ll have him in protective custody by the end of the day.”

 

No. God no, not that. Not back with _her_ …

 

“Please…” he was horrified to realize he was begging, for the first time he could recall. “Please, don’t… I’m all he has, you know that -“

“All I know,” she snarled through gritted teeth, “is that you’ve been _fucking_ a young boy with no other recourse or protection, who’s wildly emotionally vulnerable, and who you’ve very obviously cast as a stand-in for some kind of self-rescue fantasy. Forty-eight hours, Percival. Consider your workday finished.”

 

He pulled away from where he’d leaned over her desk, a shaking hand crushed to his mouth. 

“… Why?” he finally managed.

 

“Because this is what idiots do for one-time lovers. Now go home, and think.”

 

*

 

The graduation gowns were white that year, white with silvery stoles around the neck. No caps though. Something about new safety regulations.

Some of the seniors were angry, they were looking forward to decorating their mortarboards with paint and glitter and plastic streamers. For Credence, it was a bit of a relief - a reprieve from being forced to stand out for all the wrong reasons, yet again.

Something fluttery and shy settled into his belly when he finally shrugged the robe on over his painfully modest button-down and trousers, the folding creases standing out in the thin polyester. 

Even without a mirror, it was obvious he looked like one of Ma’s angels, descended from Heaven. Pure. 

It might have been too much to hope that he finally resembled one of _them,_ every other seventeen year old who would walk the stage that day, draped in the shimmering, beautiful robes of Acceptance. His shoes were shined, his skin clear, his hair combed back with warm water, but he was still painfully himself.

But it was tempting, just for a moment, to pretend.

 

He hadn’t meant to go - only twelve hours earlier, when Percival had whispered to him frantically in their place by the weight room, he had been willing to grasp each of his hands and run. 

They could go somewhere else, somewhere no one knew them. Credence could get a job, lots of other kids did. They could live alone, and with each other. That car he knew so well was just outside in the teachers’ lot - they could have gone then and there.

He had said so, but Percival had insisted.

 

_“Just let me see you take those last few steps. Let me be proud. And as soon as it’s done, we’ll run like fucking hell.”_

 

There was only one light on when Credence slipped into the narrow little hall, casting horrible shadows across the collection of crucifixes lining the walls.

 

Through the open doorway, he could see Ma sitting in her bedroom, on the bed, on the quilt she had sewn herself - Joseph and his brothers patchworked in mismatched calico, and the silver cup in grey linen. Perhaps it would have been prettier had she used a bit of sparkling braid or sequins, but that would have been sinful.

 

She hadn’t gone near him ever since he had knocked her down that rainy night. Her eyes glittered with hatred.

 

“… You’re sure you don’t wanna come, Ma?” he whispered weakly. “Th-they sell extra tickets at the door…”

 

The olive branch might have been yellowed and crumbling with rot, but it was offered nonetheless.

 

Her jaw trembled as she glared back at him, her small hands curled into the quilt like claws.

 

“I’ll tell him, when he comes again-“ she muttered, soft and gentle. “I’ll tell him, tell him your mother lay down with men by the ten-score, and from that sin -“

 

“You’re not going to say anything, Ma.”

 

A car horn blared just outside, and as he hurried down the stairs, white robe billowing, he noticed the blue paint of Miss Goldstein’s Prius Prime just visible under the street lamp.

 

They’d agreed it was too risky for Percival to come get him, just yet - but they could find each other in the crowds afterward, and then -

 

Clunking footsteps chased after him, those too-big clogs smashing against the floorboards.

 

“-and from that sin was born another, the worst of all; a woman or man who is a witch among you is to be put to death, you are to _stone them -!”_

 

Credence spun on the landing, his face twisted in distress, and at a flex of his wrist she stumbled back up the stairs, her feet not quite touching the floor.

 

“Ma…” he choked. “Ma, I want you to stop.”

 

Her breath rattled in disbelief.

 

“As Jezebel fell from the tower, so it shall be with you - and she was devoured by dogs, and her carcass was as dung upon the field - “

 

_“Go away, Ma!”_ he shrieked, with one massive push of his hand - she flew back into the bedroom, with no time to so much as scream. The door slammed shut.

 

Almost instantly hands began beating at it from the other side, her quiet, lovely voice railing after him in growing exaltation.

 

“There will be a Judgement!” she wailed. “I wash my hands of it! I tried! The Lord knows I’ve tried!”

 

*

 

It was exactly seven PM.

Rotund, care-worn cars had begun to fill the student parking lot, the main atrium swelling with sub-urbanite humanity - mothers and fathers with plastic, pride-filled smiles on their faces, whining siblings who would be squirming for the distraction of a coloring book by the end of the first commencement speech, grandparents who were barely mobile, but invited out of principle. As usual, some hyperactive mother had brought party-streamers and noisemakers, but her face had begun to color already.

 

The very air of the place was thick with the starch-collared, slightly desperate sweetness of any educational occasion - Henry knew it well. His mother had ruled the PTA with an iron fist and an invisaligned smile since the day he’d been registered at the Ten Oaks Christian Daycare.

 

The white-robed grads were being herded into a disordered line near the locker rooms, ready to process into the gym in order of last name. He tugged Julie away when Miss Rosier’s back was turned, Langdon tagging along behind them. Dumb fuck had even brought his camcorder - when was he planning to use it? They weren’t sticking around for the superintendent’s final address to the student body.

 

Then again, might be nice to have a camera on the ground, to capture the moment.

 

Henry wanted a good, long look at Credence Barebone’s face when it happened.

 

“Wait ten seconds, then click the button, got it?” he hissed as they skulked up behind the frame surrounding the podium, Henry and Julie’s glaring white robes discarded behind a clutch of rather limp daffodils.

 

“Yeah, yeah, just wait, they’re gonna piss their fucking -“

 

He shut Langdon up with a short, quick slug to the teeth. 

 

Julie had started climbing the utility ladder left tucked behind the velvet drape at the left of the stage - for a shit-for-brains idiot, Terrance had actually set things up quite well - but her razor-thin heels made her infuriatingly clumsy about it. 

 

“Wha’dyou think this is, babe? Fucking ballet class?” he hissed. 

 

“Calm the fuck down!” she growled - loudly. Too loudly.

By the time she had snatched the loose end of the rope and tossed it down to him, he had already climbed the rungs of the ladder, two at a time, and grabbed her upper arm - gossamer light sleeves slippery to the touch - in a vise-tight pinch. 

Her face pinked, and he wondered, with a quick, tingling thrill, if she’d bruise.

 

“When the buckets go, you jump down and run - run to the car and get it going - this is the real thing, get it babe? This isn’t like you and your little bitches soaking Nagi Baem’s tampons in hot sauce, ok, I think this is assault, like, this is fuckin’ jail time - and if you snitch, I’ll fuckin’ kill you, ok?”

 

She nodded, blue eyes slitted, and tugged her arm out of his grip.

 

Anticipation surged up inside him, throbbing, like the elation moments before a shuddering orgasm.

 

The rope felt chalky and dry in his moist palms.

 

He, Julie, and Langdon had less than three hours to live.

 

*

The procession began at seven-thirty. 

The forty-two strong cavalcade, arrayed in white and silver, made it’s slow, ceremonious way into the flower-bedecked gymnasium while the cream of the school band offered a clanging rendition of “Pomp and Circumstance.” A projector was playing images provided by the yearbook club across the massive white plaster wall behind the platform.

 

There was something gut-tugging about it, all the same. Some involuntary “at last-ness” that seemed to radiate from every teenager as they took their seats on the grey metal folding chairs in front of the podium.

 

Percival kept himself hidden in a corner behind the bleachers - a self confessed specter at the feast. More than one family, dressed as if for church, had thrown his unshaved face and greasy hair and un-ironed dress shirt disapproving glares; but for once, instead of finding himself tempted to say “fuck” in front of their six year old, he only felt a vague indifference.

 

Within the hour, he’d be gone anyway. Soaring down the highway at eighty mph. Credence cuddled beside him, munching timidly on gas station cookies. And Percival would take his hand, stroke his knuckles, while they drove into an endless tunnel of night and winking traffic lights.

 

Freedom. That was the sensation everywhere, filling the gym with relief. The glorious finality of _freedom_.

 

He couldn’t quite make Credence out in the sea of white gowns, but it didn't matter - he’d get a glimpse when he took the stage.

 

Percival wondered if he was nervous, out there in the crowd. Probably. He could kiss that away later, help his sweetheart lose himself in his tongue and fingers and…

 

The band had stopped playing (thank christ) and Sera had begun speaking at the podium. The microphone gave a whiny feedback, and several of the smaller children in the audience screamed.

He paid no more attention to her speech then he did to the school board's ritual of patting themselves on the back, the band’s second song, the choir crooning through the national anthem and some inspirational pop jangle that he didn’t recognize, but gleaned a few laughs from the attendees when the opening chords were played.

He didn’t listen, but he knew he would remember that Sera’s earrings were violet, and that she looked lovely as always.

_Goodbye Sera. Sorry about… well, about everything. But we had some good times, right? Goodbye babe._

 

Then the applause was rising - the conferment had been authorized, and the diplomas uncovered. They sat on a card table in a massive stack of black leather folders, waiting for their moment.

The graduates began lining up at the side of the platform, each processing singly to the center when their name was called. Sera clasped their hand briefly, then stepped back. Their black leather folder was handed to them, and a camera flash went off before they traipsed back to their seat and made way for the next.

 

It was done alphabetically.

 

Abbing. Abbott.

 

Percival’s eyes began tracing idly across the makeshift stage. The projector was still playing, snapshots of grinning teens expanded to fill an entire gym wall. All popular kids and club presidents, most likely. Credence wouldn’t be anywhere in the collection.

 

A faint shadow, long and thin like a snake, flickered at the top of the screen for a fraction of a moment.

 

Rope, his mind told him, but that couldn’t be true, there was no rope in the construction system of the entire display - he should know, he’d been railroaded into helping build the thing…

 

Ahearn. Alexandersen. Alvarez.

 

Without being entirely conscious of his actions, he slowly crossed in front of the bleachers, ignoring the annoyed mutterings of the attendees behind him.

 

He knew the feeling of dread boiling in his gut all too well. The sensation had been identical that morning the cops showed up, and somehow he’d known he wouldn’t see the outside of a chainlink fence again for fifteen months.

 

The cord extended from one side of the velvet draped lighting frame, all the way to the very center, where it vanished into the forest of electrical cables connected to the fresnels…

It twitched again, just slightly, seemed to go taut, and then loosened.

 

It took him the same moment to realize that particular pattern of movement could only result from someone tugging at the rope every few seconds, and that the large, cylindrical shape only just visible some nine feet above the podium couldn’t be another light.

 

Arnold. Ashley.

 

Barebone.

 

Credence’s foot was on the step. Credence was halfway across the platform.

 

The dutiful applause from the audience - what did they care, it wasn’t their child - smattered briefly, a stark contrast to the deathly silence from the other students.

 

“Yeah, everyone hates you, freak.” a female voice whispered, just within Percival’s hearing, but he was paralyzed in the spot beside the stage, that unnamed horror growing stronger and stronger…

 

Sera gave Credence’s hand a gentle shake, with a pleased smile. He returned it tentatively.

 

She stepped back.

 

Once upon a time, Percival had meant to flash a rare, affectionate grin.

 

He couldn’t move. It was like watching a murder unfold from behind glass.

 

Voices buzzed in his ears, radio static.

 

The roped snapped tight with an enormous yank...

 

*

 

At first, Credence only felt a rush of wet warmth ( _the shower again)_ and his eyes closed by instinct.

 

Then came the smell.

 

Thick, wet, copper on his tongue, rotted and sick…

 

He blinked his eyes open, shaking.

 

His shoes were red. Long red stripes trailed down the white robe. His hands were bathed, streams dripping from each finger. He was standing in a pool of it.

 

“Oh my God, that’s blood!” someone on the platform choked, stunned.

 

Credence couldn’t believe it, didn’t want to believe it, but it had been said now, was unretractable, unescapable.

 

They had tricked him again, made him the butt of their little games, served him right for doing _nothing_ to them, _nothing…_

 

He stared out at the crowd, his eyes burning.

 

_“Why?”_ he cried softly, only to realize that he hadn’t spoken at all, and his lips had only shifted beneath the film of red.

 

Some of it dripped into his mouth. It tasted of meat, and decay.

 

Suddenly a jolt of noise broke through the horrible, aching silence, the ringing weight of every widened eye latched on him, and in shock he recognized his own voice screeching through the bass speakers on either side of the band -

 

Screams. Mindless begging. _Stop. Please. Help._

 

Credence didn’t need to turn. He already knew. Knew what they were all staring at - other graduates, their white gowns still pristine and shining, not bearing The Mark of Shame, their entire extended families, every teacher, all of them stunned and those who didn’t know beginning to understand.

 

Behind him, on the plaster wall, grainy footage towering fifteen feet high, he was struggling, half naked, on the yellowing shower tile.

 

A buzz started at the edge of the crowd, growing louder.

 

And then, finally, because that was what came next, someone laughed.

 

Titters here and there, a cackle of shocked, old woman-ribaldry, a girl’s high-pitched giggle. It melded together into a nonsensical chorus that washed over him like surf, and he had closed his eyes again, a sob caught in his chest ( _they’re LOOKING at me!)_ when a heavy weight smashed into his back and he found himself thrown on the floor - yes, that was it wasn’t it, next would be a kick to his ass - but it never came and instead a discordant metallic _clang_ shattered the laughter.

Someone screamed.

 

*

 

It came down in a wave of thick red, splashed over Credence’s shoulders and neck and spilled up into his hair with the impact and drenched him.

 

Some of it splattered back onto the wall and ran in long, grisly drips.

 

It could have been paint. Could have been, but for the raw stink that made Percival’s teeth ache.

 

In the corner of his eye, he noticed Langdon Shaw - little rat-faced fucker - grinning behind the laptop connected to the projector unit. He should have known then, but thought was impossible. He could only feel.

 

Rage. Heartbreak and sheer, helpless rage.

 

They had hurt Credence for the last time, and when he found them they would howl for their mothers…

 

As the video began, Percival had one foot on the steps up to the podium - blood washed - when a faint popping noise drew his eyes upward to the massive, swaying bucket, still dripping. The last few threads of the cord had finally snapped, and it started to fall, down towards the stage, and Credence’s head -

 

It happened quickly.

 

Something misfired in his brain. The world moved past him like a painting on flat canvas, he was up the stairs and across the platform, seizing Credence by the shoulders and slamming him bodily to the floor, shouting something that might have been “NO!” or might not have been anything at all, and something made a loud, shattering noise like a gong - not a gong, a tin can, a pile of tin cans collapsing outside the kitchen window when the tabby barn cat brushed against them, and Percival was four years old, looking out at the old boat by the lake where Dad and his gray-haired uncles went angling, Momma cuddling him on the dock, the sad-sweet twang to every word she spoke (got you ma baby, got you all safe he’uh now) and then the pain, the crushing agony to his fist when he proved just how much the years had made him a man and not a boy (untie your apron strings Momma, I’m getting big) the flushed pleasure of Sera’s fondness and then Credence’s face, milk white and black eyed and red lipped little Snow White and it didn’t matter that it was all over now, it could end now, because he had really and truly loved and been loved and he was only sorry, so sorry, that it had to happen like this and they didn’t have more time -

 

The hollow, curved side of the bucket struck the back of Percival’s head.

 

_Fuck that hur-_

 

Then, nothing.

 

 


End file.
